Cathédrale de Chartres, façade occidentale, porte latérale Nègre, Charles  (French, 1820-1880)

In the early 1850s Nègre began working on a photogravure process based on earlier experiments by Niepce de Saint Victor. By 1855 he had perfected it and was awarded a first class medal at the Paris Exposition Universelle of that year for his photogravures. As a result Jean Baptiste Lassus, chief architect for the restoration of Chartres Cathedral succeeded in having the French government commission Nègre to create two large photogravure plates of Chartres. Eventually he made three which were published in the Monographie de la Cathédrale de Chartres in 1867.

Reproduced / Exhibited

Hellman, Karen, Sylvie Aubenas, Sarah Freeman, Anne . Mondenard, Karlyn Olvido, and Paul-Louis Roubert. Real/ideal: Photography in Mid-Nineteenth-Century France : [exhibition, Los Angeles – Getty Center (j. Paul Getty Museum), August 30 – November 27, 2016]. Los Angeles: J. Paul Getty Museum, 2016. fig.143.

Borcoman, James. Charles Negre. Ottawa: Galerie nationale du Canada, 1976. Fig. 155.

La Photographie III Collection Marie-Thérese et André Jammes Paris 22 March 2002 Lot 589

Pygmalion Photographe, La Sculpture devant la Camera, 1844-1936, Musee d”Art et d’Histoire, Geneve, 1985, pl 58

Karen Hellman, Ed., Real Ideal, Photography in Mid-Nineteenth Century France, J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles, 2016,pl 143

A New Art, Photography in the 19th Century, The Photo Collection of the Rijksmuseum, Snoeck-Ducaju & Zoon, Amsterdam, 1996, pg 23

Collections: Saint-Denis, ateliers d’art des musées nationaux, moulage et chalcographie

An Exhibition on Photographic Reproduction Processes from The Collection of Samuel J. Wagstaff, Jr. at the Grolier Club. 1983

References

Monographie de la Cathédrale de Chartres publiée par les soins du Ministère de l’Instruction Publique. Atlas. Paris Imprimerie Impériale. 1867