Rooftops
c. 1840
Medium
photogravure
Dimensions
image: 6.9 × 9.3 cm (2 11/16 × 3 11/16 in.) sheet: 14.1 × 17.6 cm (5 9/16 × 6 15/16 in.)
Classification
Photograph
Department
CPH
Museum
National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
Credit
Alfred H. Moses and Fern M. Schad Fund
Accession Number
2023.33.3
Art Historical Context
Created around 1840 by French physicist and pioneering photographer Hippolyte Louis Fizeau, *Rooftops* stands as an early and remarkable example of photogravure. This intaglio printing process, which Fizeau helped refine, allowed photographic images to be etched onto metal plates and reproduced on paper with remarkable tonal subtlety. The modest scale of the image—just under 7 by 9 centimeters—belies its technical ambition, capturing a quiet urban vista that evokes the intimate, experimental spirit of photography’s first decade. At a moment when Louis Daguerre’s process was still new and Talb...