Charles Marville

albumen print, titled and numbered '86' (twice), '342,' and 'Cl. 283' in unidentified hands in pencil on the reverse, matted, circa 1865

Private Collection

Acquired by Hans P. Kraus, Jr., New York, from the above

Acquired by the Quillan Company from the above, 1990

Jill Quasha, The Quillan Collection of Nineteenth and Twentieth Century Photographs (New York, 1991), pl. 30 (this print)

Another print of this image:

Maria Morris Hambourg, Charles Marville: Photographs of Paris at the Time of the Second Empire on Loan from the Musée Carnavalet, Paris (New York, 1981, in conjunction with the exhibition), pl. 40

Grading this albumen print on a scale of 1 to 10 - 10 being an albumen print that has deep brown dark tones and highlights that retain all of their original detail - this print rates an 8+. The dark areas do not have quite the density that would rate a 10, although the overall tonality of the print is quite pleasing. The print is untrimmed and the negative edges are partially visible in the print's borders. When the print is examined closely, some rippling along the top edge can be seen. In high raking light, a 2-inch handling crease can be seen in the lower left quadrant of the image, and a 1 ½ -inch handling crease can be seen in the upper left corner. Neither of these breaks the emulsion. When the print is examined further in raking light, smaller, less noticeable handling creases are visible in a number of places on the surface. There is some very faint fading along the left edge of the image, which may possibly due to a flaw in the negative.
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Originally trained as a painter and graphic artist, Charles Marville began photographing in the early 1850s.  In that decade, he was commissioned by the city of Paris to document the older quarters of the city in advance of, and during, urban modernizations planned by Emperor Napoleon III and his Prefect of the Seine, Baron Georges-Eugène Haussmann.  The resulting images captured 'old' Paris before its renewal, showing the deleterious conditions that needed to be changed, and the recently-made improvements.  These photographs, which provide a panoramic portrait of a Paris that no longer exists, earned Marville the title 'Photographe de la ville de Paris.'

This image depicts the Bièvre River in the 13th arrondissement near the Gobelins tapestry works.  The Bièvre originates near Versailles, entering Paris at Gentilly, and once flowed as a pure stream across the city.  By 1860, dyers, tanners, cotton and flour mills, and soap and candle factories used it as a means to discard waste.  Unable to regulate its flow, Paris authorities covered the river and connected it to the city's sewer system.  Today, there is a movement to uncover portions of the Bièvre, the only tributary on the Left Bank of the Seine.