Street Musicians
1898-1899, printed 1956
Medium
gelatin silver print
Dimensions
image/sheet: 21.59 × 16.51 cm (8 1/2 × 6 1/2 in.) mount: 33 × 25.4 cm (13 × 10 in.)
Classification
Photograph
Department
CPH
Museum
National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
Credit
Corcoran Collection (Gift of Eric R. Fox)
Accession Number
2015.19.4351
Art Historical Context
Eugène Atget's *Street Musicians*, captured around 1898–1899 in the bustling streets of Paris, a poignant glimpse into everyday life at the turn of the 20th century. Atget, a pioneering French photographer, dedicated his career to documenting the city's vanishing old quarters, shops, and inhabitants with unadorned realism. This gelatin silver print, made from an original glass negative and printed in 1956 immortalizes humble performers—likely accordionists or fiddlers—whose lively trade animated Paris's sidewalks amid the Belle Époque's social vibrancy. Atget's straightforward approach, esche...
About the Artist
Eugène Atget
Eugène Atget, born Jean-Eugène-Auguste Atget on February 12, 1857, in Libourne, France, faced early hardship as an orphan at age seven after his carriage-builder father died in 1862 and his mother soon followed. Raised by his maternal grandparents in Bordeaux, he briefly joined the merchant navy after secondary education and pursued acting in Paris from 1878, attending the Conservatoire d'Art Dram...