Mlle Troisvalets
1850s–60s
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
2005.100.588.1.149
Art Historical Context
In the bustling photographic studios of mid-19th-century Paris André-Adolphe-Eène Disdéri capturedMlle Troisvalets a poised portrait from the 185s–60s. This album silver print, made from a glass negative, the elegant Mademoiselle—likely a performer or actress of the era—in a format that highlights the era's fascination with celebrity and self-presentation. Measuring 7 3/8 × 9 1/4 inches, the image is mounted on a larger album page, evoking personal photograph albums that became cherished keepsakes in Victorian homes. Disdéri, a trailblazing French photographer, revolutionized the medium by in...
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...