Goupil & Cie was a leading art dealer in 19th-century France, with its headquarters in Paris. Goupil established a worldwide trade in fine art reproductions of paintings and sculptures, with a network of branches and agents in London and other major art capitals across Continental Europe as well as in New York City and Australia. Adolphe Goupil formed Goupil & Cie in 1850. Until 1861 the firm concentrated on buying, selling and editing prints. To feed an emerging middle-class market with inexpensive art, Goupil’s workshop outside Paris employed skilled craftsmen to produce engraved, etched, photographic and even sculptural copies of paintings in vast quantities.

Over the second half of the 19th century Goupil’s leadership – and name for that matter – changed frequently. One iteration beginning in 1884 was Boussod, Valdon & Cie.

This print from the 1888 volume of the Bulletin de la Société française de photographie is an example of a photogravure identified as an aqua-tinta par Manzi by the Boussod, Valadon, & Co. workshop. We know that Manzi began working for Goupil in 1882 and that in 1897 a spinoff firm was created named Boussod, Manzi, Joyant & Cie, but the exact relation of the two firms and Manzi’s role in them is unclear.