Charles Marville, 1816-circa 1879

Albumen Prints, mounted on card, each with photographic paper label bearing facsimile manuscript caption and with photographer's 'Ch Marville/Photographe/Du Musee Imperiale/Du Louvre' blindstamp on the mount below image, a small number with one of two collection stamps either on the mount or on the reverse, the mounts annotated in pencil in a modern hand with plate nos. lower right, together with a modern cloth portfolio with original leather label inscribed in gilt 'Charles/Marville/Édicules/et/Éclairages',

Collection Debuisson.

For other prints of plates in this series, see de Thézy 1994, pp. 209-245; another print of the illustrated image reproduced p. 231.

This remarkable body of work is little known. A record of Parisian lampposts, the studies, with their empty streets and mainly frontal presentation, anthropomophise their subjects: some of the studies present as if portraits of attenuated Parisian citizens. This proto-surreal effect, later recognised by the Surrealists in Atget's studies of Paris, is a function of the tension between the banality of the subject matter and the beauty of these large-format albumen prints.