Le Geant, Champ de Mars
October 18, 1863, probably printed 1880/89
Medium
Gelatin silver printing out paper print
Dimensions
Image/paper: 17.1 × 16.5 cm (6 3/4 × 6 1/2 in.); First mount: 18.8 × 18.4 cm (7 7/16 × 7 1/4 in.); Second mount: 33 × 24.2 cm (13 × 9 9/16 in.)
Classification
gelatin silver printing-out-paper print
Department
Photography and Media
Museum
Art Institute of Chicago
Accession Number
92202
Art Historical Context
Step into the thrilling world of 19th innovation with *Le Géant, Champ de Mars by Nadar (Gaspard-Félix Tournachon), a pioneering French photographer, caricaturist, and aeronaut captured here on October 18, 1863. This gelatin silver printing-out-paper print likely made between 1880 and 1889, depicts Nadar's monumental hydrogen balloon, *Le Géant*—the largest of its time at over 60 meters tall—poised at Paris's Champ de Mars. Nadar, a restless visionary, launched it as a spectacle to advance aerial photography and scientific observation, drawing massive crowds eager for the dawn of flight. The ...