Vue du Village d'Herment
1849–50
Medium
Salted paper print from paper negative
Dimensions
Image: 6 in. × 8 3/8 in. (15.3 × 21.3 cm) Mount: 12 5/16 × 18 11/16 in. (31.2 × 47.5 cm)
Classification
Photographs
Department
Photographs
Museum
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
Credit
Gilman Collection, Gift of The Howard Gilman Foundation, 2005
Accession Number
2005.100.376.86
Tags
Art Historical Context
**Vue du Village d'Her** captures the serene charm of the French village of Hériment in the Auvergne, as seen through the lens of Maxime Du Camp around 1849–50. Du Camp, a pioneering French and writer best known for his groundbreaking travels to Egypt with Gustave Flaubert, turned his camera toward everyday European landscapes early in his career. This paper print offers a poetic glimpse of rural life—rolling hills, clustered homes, and perhaps a hint of daily activity—evoking the Romantic fascination with nature's quiet beauty. Printed from a paper negative using the calotype process invente...
About the Artist
Maxime Du Camp · 1822–present
Maxime Du Camp (1822–1894) was a pioneering French photographer and writer whose adventurous spirit and technical innovation bridged literature and visual art during the mid-19th century. Born in Paris on February 8, 1822, to a prosperous family—his father a successful surgeon—Du Camp received a solid bourgeois education at the Collège Bourbon (now Lycée Condorcet), where he cultivated interests i...