Eugène Cuvelier (1837-1900)
'AU BAS DU POINT DE VUE DU CAMP' c.1860s salt print from a paper negative, image size, 254 by 337mm, numbered '282' by the photographer in the negative, mounted on contemporary paper support, titled in an unidentified hand in pencil recto, matted
Catalogue Note:
The present photograph bears a notable resemblance to a drawing by Théodore Rousseau entitled Route en Forêt (Michel Schulman, Théodore Rousseau 1812 - 1867: Catalogue Raisonné de l'Oeuvre Graphique, no. 738), made circa 1860. In both works, a dirt carriage track dominates the bottom and right sides of the frame, and a grove of tall trees stands on the left. The photograph and the drawing appear to have been made from similar vantage points: Cuvelier and Rousseau each placed themselves squarely in the middle of the track in formulating their compositions. The depth of the shadows in Cuvelier's photograph -- in the foreground, and pooled beneath the stand of trees -- indicates that he took this image under the full force of the sun on a particularly bright day.
Gauss does not list this salt print in her census, and accounts for only one albumen print.
Literature:
Ulrike Gauss, Henning Weidemann, and Daniel Challe, Eugène Cuvelier (Stuttgart, 1996, in conjunction with the exhibition), no. 282
Provenance
The collection of John Chandler Bancroft, Middletown, Rhode Island
Gustave J. S. White Co., Auctioneers, Newport, Rhode Island, 1989
New England antiques dealer 2007
Sotheby's: An Important Collection of Photographs by Eugène and Adalbert Cuvelier Lot 4 2007
Sold for £6,000
Includes Buyer's Premium
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