Les Chiens
1860s
Medium
Albumen silver print from glass negative
Dimensions
11.7 x 8.9 cm (4 5/8 x 3 1/2 in.)
Classification
Photographs
Department
Photographs
Museum
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
Credit
David Hunter McAlpin Fund, 1975
Accession Number
1975.548.173
Tags
Art Historical Context
**Les Chiens**, a charming albumen silver print by French photographer Pierre-Louis Pierson the 1860s, captures the playful elegance of dogs in a petite 11.7 x 8.9 cm format—perfect for the era's popular carte de visite portraits. Housed in the Metropolitan Museum of Art's Department, this work exemplifies mid-19th-century photography's intimate scale, acquired through the David Hunter McAlpin in 1975. Pierson, a key figure in Parisian society photography, often worked with the Mayer Brothers studio, producing refined images for the elite. The albumen process, using egg whites to coat paper w...
About the Artist
Pierre-Louis Pierson · 1822–1913
Pierre-Louis Pierson (1822–1913) was a pioneering French portrait photographer whose career spanned the formative years of the medium. Born on December 13, 1822, in Hinckange in the Moselle department, Pierson developed an early fascination with photography during the 1840s, as the daguerreotype was still in its infancy. His early life and formal training remain sparsely documented, but by 1844, h...