Versailles, Vase
Medium
Albumen print
Dimensions
Image: 22.1 × 17.7 cm (8 3/4 × 7 in.); Paper: 22.1 × 17.9 cm (8 3/4 × 7 1/16 in.)
Classification
albumen silver print
Department
Photography and Media
Museum
Art Institute of Chicago
Accession Number
124320
Art Historical Context
Step into the opulent world of the Palace of Versailles through Jean-Eugène-Auguste Atget'sVersailles, Vase (1905), a albumen silver print now housed in the Art Institute Chicago's Photography and Media department. Atget, a pioneering French photographer (1857–1927), dedicated his career to documenting the architectural and everyday splendors of Paris and its surroundings in the early 20th. This intimate 22.1 × 17.7 cm image a decorative vase, likely from the palace's lavish interiors, highlighting the intricate craftsmanship of 18th-century French royalty. The albumen print medium, popular 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...