Mlle Dominique; Mlle Rousseau
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
2005.100.588.1.86
Art Historical Context
In 1864, French photographer André-Adolpheugène Disdéri *Mlle Dominique; Mlle Rousseau*, an elegant albumen silver print from a glass, now housed in The Metropolitan Museum of Art's Gilman Collection. Measuring 7 3/8 × 9 1/4 inches, this poised double portrait showcases two young women—likely actresses or performers, given their "Mlle" titles—adorned in the lavish crinolines and lace of Second Empire fashion. Disdéri's mastery of the wet-collodion process on glass negatives produced sharp, luminous details, with the albumen paper yielding rich tones that brought Victorian-era glamour to life. ...
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...