Fille de Shanghai
Medium
Albumen silver print from glass negative with applied color
Dimensions
23.7 x 19.3 cm (9 5/16 x 7 5/8 in.)
Classification
Photographs
Department
Photographs
Museum
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
Credit
Gilman Collection, Museum Purchase, 2005
Accession Number
2005.100.505.1 (12a)
Tags
Art Historical Context
In the bustling port city of Shanghai during the 1870, Austrian photographer Raimund von Still captured *Fille de*, a poignant portrait of a young woman. This intimate albumen silver print, made from a glass negative and enhanced with meticulously applied color, measures 23.7 x 19.3 cm and now graces the Metropolitan Museum of Art's Gilman Collection. Von Stillfried, a pioneering figure in early Asian photography, mastered the albumen process—then the gold standard for sharp, detailed prints—which allowed for rich tonal range and subtle hand-coloring. This technique transformed stark black-an...
About the Artist
Raimund von Stillfried · 1839–1911
Raimund von Stillfried (1839–1911) was an Austrian photographer who became one of the foremost Western practitioners of photography in Japan during the Meiji era. Born Baron Raimund von Stillfried-Ratenicz in Bohemia into an aristocratic family, he pursued a military career before discovering photography and making his way to East Asia in the early 1870s. He settled in Yokohama — then the principa...