The Beach at Sainte-Adresse
1856/57
Medium
Albumen print, from the album "Vistas del Mar"
Dimensions
31.3 × 38.7 cm (12 3/8 × 15 1/4 in.)
Classification
albumen silver print
Department
Photography and Media
Museum
Art Institute of Chicago
Accession Number
126482
Art Historical Context
Step onto the sun-kissed sands of Sainte-Adresse with Gustave Le Gray's *The Beach at Sainte-Ad* (1856/57), a captivating albumen silver print from his album *Vistas del Mar ("Views of the Sea This 31.3 × 38.7 cm photograph transports us to the Normandy coast near Le Havre France, where gentle waves meet a vast horizon. Le Gray, a pioneering French photographer and key figure in the Romantic landscape tradition, masterfully captured the interplay of light, sea, and sky during photography's formative years. As an albumen print—the dominant process of the 1850s— this work showcases egg-white-co...
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...