Born in Saujon in 1798, Jules Dufaure rose from a successful legal career in Bordeaux to become one of the pivotal political figures of 19th-century France. Elected deputy in 1834, he first served as Minister of Public Works in 1839, where he promoted the rapid expansion of the national railway network. A convinced republican by the Revolution of 1848, he later held the post of Minister of the Interior under President Adolphe Thiers. With the establishment of the Third Republic, Dufaure emerged as a stabilizing moderate, serving three times as President of the Council (Prime Minister) between 1876 and 1879. Also elected bâtonnier of the Paris bar (1862) and admitted to the Académie française (1864), he was respected as both an orator and statesman. Dufaure’s career, ending with his death in Rueil in 1881, reflects the effort to reconcile political divisions and secure the institutions of the young Republic.

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.