Mlle Stoïkoff
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
2005.100.588.1.132
Art Historical Context
In 1861, French photographer André-Adolphe-Eugène Disdéri *Mlle Stoïkoff*, a striking albumen silver print from a negative, now housed in the Metropolitan Museum of's Gilman Collection. Measuring 7 3/8 × 9 1/4 inches, this portrait exemplifies the carte de visite format that Disdéri pioneered in 1854—a small, affordable photograph mounted on card stock, revolutionizing 19th-century portraiture. The albumen process, using egg whites to coat paper with light-sensitive silver salts, produced rich tones and exquisite detail, making images both intimate and reproducible. Disdéri's innovation spark...
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...