Tents and Military Gear, Camp de Châlons
1857
Medium
Albumen print, from the album "Souvenirs du Camp de Châlons"
Dimensions
Image/paper: 27.1 × 35.2 cm (10 11/16 × 13 7/8 in.); Album page: 52.8 × 63.7 cm (20 13/16 × 25 1/8 in.)
Classification
albumen silver print
Department
Photography and Media
Museum
Art Institute of Chicago
Accession Number
144439
Art Historical Context
**Tents and Military Gear, de Châlons***Gustave Le Gray, 1857* Albumen silver print; Art Institute of Chicago Step into the disciplined world of 19th-century France with Gustave Le Gray's *Tents and Military Gear, Camp de Châlons (1857), an albumen print from the souvenir album *Souvenirs Camp de Châlons Captured at one of Europe's largest military training grounds near Châlons-en-Champagne, this image documents the vast encampments held annually under Napoleon III's Second Empire. These gatherings showcased French military prowess, drawing thousands of troops for maneuvers that blended s...
About the Artist
Gustave Le Gray · 1820–1884
Gustave Le Gray, born on August 30, 1820, in Villiers-le-Bel near Paris to a prosperous merchant family, pursued his artistic ambitions against his parents' wishes for a legal career. As an only child, he trained as a painter in the studios of François-Édouard Picot and Paul Delaroche at the École des Beaux-Arts, exhibiting at the Paris Salons in 1848 and 1853. In 1844, he married Palmira Leonardi...