Versailles, Fontaine du Point du Jour, (Tigre Terrassant un Ours par Houzeau)
Medium
Albumen print
Dimensions
Image: 17.6 × 21.8 cm (6 15/16 × 8 5/8 in.); Paper: 17.8 × 21.8 cm (7 1/16 × 8 5/8 in.)
Classification
albumen silver print
Department
Photography and Media
Museum
Art Institute of Chicago
Accession Number
124301
Art Historical Context
Step into the lush gardens of Versailles through Jean-Eugène-Auguste At's evocative 1903 albumen, *Versailles, Fontaine du du Jour (Tigre Terrassant Ours par Houzeau. Captured at the Fontaine du Point du Jour, intimate photograph spotlights a dynamic sculpture by Houzeau: a fierce tiger overpowering a bear, symbol raw natural power amid the opulent Baroque landscape designed by André Le Nôtre for Louis XIV. Atget's lens frames the fountain's intricate details—the water's subtle flow, the stone's weathered texture—offering a quiet glimpse into early 20th-century France, just before World War I ...
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...