Versailles, Le Parc
Medium
Albumen print
Dimensions
Image: 22 × 17.6 cm (8 11/16 × 6 15/16 in.); Paper: 22 × 17.8 cm (8 11/16 × 7 1/16 in.)
Classification
albumen silver print
Department
Photography and Media
Museum
Art Institute of Chicago
Accession Number
124056
Art Historical Context
Step into the timeless elegance of Jean-Eugène-Auguste Atget's *Versailles, Le Parc (1906), an albumen print capturing the sprawling gardens of the Palace of Versailles. Atget, a pioneering French (1857–1927), dedicated his career to documenting the fading grandeur of old Paris and its surroundings, preserving architectural and natural wonders before modernization erased them. This image, with its precise dimensions of 22 × 17.6 cm, invites visitors to wander the manicured paths and symmetrical landscapes designed by André Le Nôtre in the 17th century—symbols of Louis XIV's absolutist splendor...
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...