Elise Parent; Corinne
Medium
Albumen silver print from glass negative
Dimensions
Image: 7 3/8 × 9 1/4 in. (18.8 × 23.5 cm) Album page: 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
2005.100.588.1.16
Art Historical Context
In 1861, French photographer André-Adolpheugène Disdéri *Elise Parent; Corinne* using the albumen silver print from a glass negative, hallmark of mid-19th-century photography. This intimate double portrait, measuring 7 3/8 × 9 1/4 inches, showcases two figures—likely mother and daughter—posed with elegant poise against a neutral backdrop. Mounted on a larger album page, it reflects the era's growing fascination with photography as a personal and collectible art form. Disdéri, a pioneer in commercial portraiture, revolutionized the medium by inventing the carte de visite format in 1854—a small...
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...