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
2005.100.588.1.122
Art Historical Context
In the bustling photographic studios of 1860s Paris, André-Adphe-Eugène Disdéri captured the elegance of *Mlle Simon* in this exquisite albumen silver print from glass negative, dated 1862. Disdéri, a pioneering French photographer, revolutionized portraiture by inventing the carte de visite—a compact, affordable card-mounted photograph that swept like a fad. Though slightly larger than the standard carte, this intimate image of the poised young woman, likely an actress or performer given her "Mademoiselle" moniker, exemplifies the era's fascination with celebrity likenesses exchanged as calli...
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...