Mass, Camp de Châlons
1857
Medium
Albumen print, from the album "Souvenirs du Camp de Châlons"
Dimensions
Image/paper: 30 × 36.7 cm (11 13/16 × 14 1/2 in.); Album page: 52.8 × 63.8 cm (20 13/16 × 25 1/8 in.)
Classification
albumen silver print
Department
Photography and Media
Museum
Art Institute of Chicago
Accession Number
144423
Art Historical Context
In 1857, Gustave Le Gray, a pioneering French photographer renowned for his poetic landscapes and technical innovations, captured the grandeur of *Mass, Camp de Chons* during one of Napoleon III's lavish military reviews at the expansive Camp de Châlons in France. This albumen silver print hails from Le Gray's album *Souirs du Camp de Chons*, a visual chronicle of the Second Empire's military pomp, blending spectacle with solemnity. The image depicts a religious service amid the vast encampment, highlighting the intersection of faith, patriotism, and imperial power in mid-19th-century Europe. ...
About the Artist
Gustave Le Gray · 1820–1884
Gustave Le Gray, born on August 30, 1820, in Villiers-le-Bel near Paris to a prosperous merchant family, pursued his artistic ambitions against his parents' wishes for a legal career. As an only child, he trained as a painter in the studios of François-Édouard Picot and Paul Delaroche at the École des Beaux-Arts, exhibiting at the Paris Salons in 1848 and 1853. In 1844, he married Palmira Leonardi...