Versailles, Grand Trianon, (Le Parc)
Medium
Albumen print
Dimensions
Image/paper: 17.6 × 21.9 cm (6 15/16 × 8 5/8 in.)
Classification
albumen silver print
Department
Photography and Media
Museum
Art Institute of Chicago
Accession Number
124307
Art Historical Context
Step into the serene gardens of Versailles with Jean-Eugène-Aug Atget's *Versailles, Grand Trian, (Le Parc)*, an albumen silver print from 1. Atget, a pioneering French photographer (1857–1927), dedicated his career to meticulously documenting the architecture, streets, and landscapes of Paris and its royal outskirts, preserving a fading world before modernization swept it away. This intimate 17.6 × 21.9 cm image captures the grounds of the Grand Trian—a petite palace built by Louis XIV as a retreat from Versailles' opulence—evoking the refined beauty of 18th-century French landscaping amid ea...
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...