Title
Adolphe ThiersArtist
Nadar (Gaspard-Félix Tournachon) (French, 1820-1910)Publication
Les Figures ContemporainesDate
1861Process
PhotogravureAtelier
Baudran et de la BlanchereImage Size
18.4 x 24.5 cmSheet Size
30 x 21 cm
The gravure printing will be without doubt one of the most beautiful and complete conquests of modern science. by H. de la Blanchère, 1861
Baudran was an engraver. In the 1850s and 1860s he was recognized for advancing several intaglio reproductive processes including Niepce de Saint-Victor’s heliographic engraving technique. Baudran and De La Blanchère invented an photogravure technique which enabling a deeper etch and therefore larger print run. Examples of their photogravures are rare.
Comparing Nadar’s signature, this sample differs from the second example of this print in the collection suggesting that one of them was made as a proof.
Reproduced / Exhibited
Bann, Stephen. Distinguished Images: Prints in the Visual Economy of Nineteenth-Century France. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2013. no. 49 (alt)
References
Eder, Josef M, and Edward Epstean. History of Photography, by Josef Maria Eder. Translated by Edward Epstean. New York: Columbia University Press, 1945. Print.
