Versailles, Bosquet de l'Arc de Triomphe
Medium
Albumen print
Dimensions
Image: 21.8 × 17.6 cm (8 5/8 × 6 15/16 in.); Paper: 21.8 × 17.9 cm (8 5/8 × 7 1/16 in.)
Classification
albumen silver print
Department
Photography and Media
Museum
Art Institute of Chicago
Accession Number
124286
Art Historical Context
Step into the meticulously manicured gardens of Versailles through Jean-Eugène-Auguste Atget's *Versailles, Bosquet de l'Arc de Triomphe* (1904), an exquisite albumen silver print capturing a secluded grove adorned with a neoclassical triumphal arch. Atget, a pioneering French photographer (1857–1927), devoted his career to documenting the fading architectural treasures of Paris and its environs, creating an invaluable visual archive before urbanization erased them. This image exemplifies his signature style: unadorned, almost forensic precision that reveals the interplay of light and shadow a...
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...