The Madame B Album
Medium
Albumen prints 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
201102
Art Historical Context
The Madame B Album, created by Marie-Blanche Hennelle Fournier in the 1870s, offers a fascinating glimpse into the early days of photography as both a documentary tool and an artistic medium. Housed in the Art Institute of Chicago’s Photography and Media collection, this album combines albumen prints with delicate watercolor additions, measuring 29.2 × 41.9 cm. Such hybrid works reflect the transitional period when photographers often enhanced their images by hand to achieve richer tones or painterly effects, bridging the gap between mechanical reproduction and traditional fine art. Fournier’...
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...