Versailles, Bosquet de l' Arc de Triomphe
Medium
Albumen print
Dimensions
Image/paper: 17.4 × 21.3 cm (6 7/8 × 8 7/16 in.)
Classification
albumen silver print
Department
Photography and Media
Museum
Art Institute of Chicago
Accession Number
124047
Art Historical Context
Step into the meticulously manicured gardens of Versailles through Jean-Eugène-Auguste Atget's *Versailles, Bosquet de l'Arc de Triomphe* (1901), an albumen silver print that captures a serene grove featuring a charming Arc de Triomphe folly. Atget, a pioneering French photographer, devoted his career to documenting the fading architectural treasures of Paris and its surroundings, creating an invaluable visual archive before widespread modernization erased them. This intimate 17.4 × 21.3 cm image exemplifies Atget's straightforward, unmanipulated style, emphasizing texture, light, and shadow ...
About the Artist
Jean-Eugène-Auguste Atget · 1857–1927
Jean-Eugène-Auguste Atget was born on February 12, 1857, in Libourne, France, to working-class parents—a carriage maker father who died in 1862 and a mother who passed away soon after, orphaning him at age six or seven. Raised by his maternal grandparents in Bordeaux, Atget briefly pursued a seafaring life before moving to Paris in the late 1870s to study acting at the Conservatoire d'art dramatiq...