Versailles, Vase par Ballin
Medium
Albumen print
Dimensions
Image/paper: 21.4 × 17.6 cm (8 7/16 × 6 15/16 in.)
Classification
albumen silver print
Department
Photography and Media
Museum
Art Institute of Chicago
Accession Number
124153
Art Historical Context
Step into the opulent world of Versailles through Jean-Eugène-Auguste Atget *Versailles, Vase parin* (1902), an albumen silver print now housed in the Art Institute of Chicago's Photography and Media Department. Atget, a pioneering French photographer (1857–1927), dedicated much of his career to meticulously documenting the fading grandeur of Paris and its royal enclaves, including the Palace of Versailles. This intimate 21.4 × 17.6 cm image captures a finely crafted vase attributed to Claude Ballin, the renowned 17th-century royal cabinetmaker who supplied Louis XIV's court with lavish decora...
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...