Clara Pilvois; Simon
1850s–60s
Medium
Albumen silver print from glass negative
Dimensions
Image: 7 1/16 × 5 13/16 in. (18 × 14.8 cm) Sheet: 10 3/8 × 13 3/4 in. (26.3 × 35 cm)
Classification
Photographs
Department
Photographs
Museum
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
Credit
Gilman Collection, Gift of The Howard Gilman Foundation, 2005
Accession Number
2005.100.588.1.53
Art Historical Context
In the 1850s and 1860s, French photographer André-Adolphe-Eugène Disdéri revolutionized portraiture with his invention of the *carte de visite*, a small, affordable photograph mounted on cardstock that swept Europe like a celebrity trading card craze. This albumen silver print from a negative, titled *Clara Pilvois;*, exemplifies his commercial genius. Measuring about 7 x 6 inches, it captures two figures—likely siblings or family members—in a studio setting, their poised expressions and crisp details rendered with the era's signature warm tones from albumen, a protein derived from egg whites ...
About the Artist
André-Adolphe-Eugène Disdéri · 1819–1889
**André-Adolphe-Eugène Disdéri** (1819–1889) was a pioneering French photographer whose innovations transformed portraiture into a mass medium during the Second Empire. Born on March 28, 1819, in Paris, Disdéri pursued diverse careers in commerce, acting, and politics early on, while studying art amid personal hardships following his father's death, which compelled him to support his mother, sibli...