Mlle Crétin; Mlle Simon
Medium
Albumen silver print from glass negative
Dimensions
Image: 7 3/8 × 9 1/4 in. (18.8 × 23.5 cm) Album page: 10 3/8 × 13 3/4 in. (26.3 × 35 cm)
Classification
Photographs
Department
Photographs
Museum
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
Credit
Gilman Collection, Gift of The Howard Gilman Foundation, 2005
Accession Number
2005.100.588.1.118
Art Historical Context
Step into the refined world of mid-19th-century photography *Mlle Crétin; Mlle Simon*, a captivating double portrait by French photographer André-Adolpheugène Disdéri, created in 1861 Disdéri, a pioneer in commercial photography, captured these two young women—likely performers or society figures, as suggested by their "Mademoiselle" titles—posed with poised elegance against a studio backdrop. This albumen silver print from a glass negative measures 7 3/8 × 9 1/4 inches, mounted on a larger album page, evoking the era's popular photographic albums that functioned like personal galleries of adm...
About the Artist
André-Adolphe-Eugène Disdéri · 1819–1889
**André-Adolphe-Eugène Disdéri** (1819–1889) was a pioneering French photographer whose innovations transformed portraiture into a mass medium during the Second Empire. Born on March 28, 1819, in Paris, Disdéri pursued diverse careers in commerce, acting, and politics early on, while studying art amid personal hardships following his father's death, which compelled him to support his mother, sibli...