The Madame B Album
Medium
Albumen print with watercolor (in album)
Dimensions
29.2 × 41.9 cm (11 1/2 × 16 1/2 in.)
Classification
photograph
Department
Photography and Media
Museum
Art Institute of Chicago
Accession Number
200920
Art Historical Context
Step into the intimate world of 19th-century photography with *The Madame B Album* Marie-Blanche Henn Fournier, created in the 1870s. This album, measuring 29.2 × 41.9 cm, albumen prints delicately enhanced with watercolor, a technique that brought vibrant color to the era's typically monochromatic images. Housed in the Art Institute of Chicago Photography and Media Department, it exemplifies the personal, handcrafted albums popular among middle- and upper-class families. Albumen prints, introduced in the 1850s, were the gold standard for photographic paper, coated with egg whites for sharp d...
About the Artist
Marie-Blanche Hennelle Fournier · 1831–1906
Marie-Blanche Hennelle Fournier (1831–1906), known affectionately as Blanche, was a French artist whose life intertwined with the peripatetic world of diplomacy. As the second wife of career diplomat Hugues-Marie-Henri Fournier, she accompanied him on postings to Stockholm, Sweden, and later Rome, Italy, during the 1870s. The couple had a daughter, Pauline, born in 1855, whose portraits frequently...