Born in La Roche-sur-Yon in 1828, Paul-Jacques-Aimé Baudry became one of the leading painters of the French Academic tradition during the Second Empire. After training at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris under Michel-Martin Drolling, he won the prestigious Prix de Rome in 1850 with his canvas Zenobia Found on the Banks of the Araxes, which allowed him to study in Italy and absorb the influence of Renaissance masters such as Correggio. His early Salon successes, including The Martyrdom of a Virgin (1857), established his reputation, but his greatest achievement remains the monumental decorative program for the foyer of the Paris Opera (Palais Garnier), executed over more than a decade and celebrated as one of the masterpieces of 19th-century mural painting. Works like The Pearl and the Wave (1862) demonstrate his refined technique and idealized vision of the human form. Elected to the Académie des Beaux-Arts, Baudry died in Paris in 1886, remembered as a central figure of French official art in his era.

Issued in installments by the Parisian publisher Goupil between 1876 and 1884, the Galerie Contemporaine, Littéraire, Artistique brought together 241 portraits of prominent figures in literature, music, science, and politics offring the French public an unprecedented visual gallery of the people shaping their cultural and civic life during the Second Empire and the early Third Republic.

The project was fueled by a spirit of national pride and by a new, more modern fascination with fame. Its subtitle—Littéraire Artistique—signaled a desire to elevate photography as a vehicle for high culture, while also capitalizing on the growing appetite for celebrity portraiture.
The images themselves were printed as woodburytypes giving the portraits a richness and permanence that aligned perfectly with the project’s lofty cultural ambitions.

Today, Galerie Contemporaine endures not only as a milestone in the history of photography and publishing, but also as a vivid record of the artists, scientists, and statesmen whose lives and ideas defined modern France.