Marseille
late 1850s (?)
Medium
Albumen silver print from paper negative
Dimensions
Image: 32.6 x 42.7 cm (12 13/16 x 16 13/16 in.) Mount: 46 x 60.5 cm (18 1/8 x 23 13/16 in.)
Classification
Photographs
Department
Photographs
Museum
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
Credit
Gilman Collection, Gift of The Howard Gilman Foundation, 2005
Accession Number
2005.100.364.56
Tags
Art Historical Context
Édouard Baldus's *Marseille*, from the late 185s, captures the bustling energy of France's industrial boom through the lens of its expanding railway network. As a leading photographer of the era, Baldus specialized in monumental architecture and infrastructure, often commissioned to document Napoleon III's public works. This albumen silver print, made from a paper negative, a train or railway scene in the vibrant port city of Marseille, highlighting the transformative power of steam-powered transport that connected France's provinces to its heart. The albumen process, popular in mid-19th-cent...
About the Artist
Edouard Baldus · 1813–1889
Édouard-Denis Baldus (1813–1889), born in Grünebach, Prussia, moved to Paris in 1838 at age twenty-five to study painting outside the École des Beaux-Arts and atelier system. Trained initially as a painter, draughtsman, and lithographer, he exhibited at the Paris Salons from 1841 to 1851 without notable recognition. Around 1849, Baldus pivoted to photography, embracing William Henry Fox Talbot's p...