Rue Neuve-Coquenard (from the Rue Lamartine)
1870s
Medium
Albumen silver print
Dimensions
32.6 x 27 cm (12 13/16 x 10 5/8 in. )
Classification
Photographs
Department
Photographs
Museum
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
Credit
Purchase, Harris Brisbane Dick Fund and Warner Communications Inc. Purchase Fund, by exchange, 1997
Accession Number
1997.107
Tags
Art Historical Context
Step into the shadowy lanes of 19th-century Paris with *Rue Neuve-Coquenardfrom the Rue Lamart)*, a captivating albumen silver print by Marville from the 1870s. Marville, the official photographer the city of Paris under Emperor Napoleon III, meticulously documented the capital's medieval streets just before Baron Haussmann's sweeping urban transformed them into grand boulevards. This .6 x 27 cm image captures a narrow, winding alleyway lined with weathered buildings, offering a poignant glimpse of everyday life in the old quarters. The albumen silver print medium, popular in the mid-19th cen...
About the Artist
Charles Marville · 1813–1879
**Charles Marville**, born Charles François Bossu on July 17, 1813, in Paris, adopted his professional pseudonym around 1832 to avoid the stigma of "bossu," meaning hunchback in French. Trained as a painter, engraver, and illustrator, he spent nearly two decades producing woodblock illustrations for books and magazines before embracing photography around 1850. His transition coincided with the med...