[Caryatid by Victor Vilain, Decoration of the Louvre, Paris]

Creator

French Photographer · 1813–1889

"[E]veryone knows [Mr.] Baldus," a reviewer wrote in 1859. By the mid-1850s, Édouard-Denis Baldus was the most successful photographer in France and at the height of his career. He began as a painter, turning to photography in 1849 when paper negatives were just becoming popular. Throughout much of his life, he listed himself in city directories as peintre photographe (painter photographer), in re