Eugène Atget

albumen print, numbered '11' and titled, possibly by the photographer, in pencil on the reverse, 1921 (The Work of Atget, Volume IV: Modern Times, pl. 67; Looking at Atget, pl. 100)

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 a 7. The photograph is light overall. This may be due to fading, or this print may represent a light rendering of this image. Its dark tones are a red-brown, while the highlights are a pale cream color. Somewhat unevenly trimmed, the print is essentially in very good condition. Some very minor rippling can also be seen in the print when it is viewed in raking light. None of these issues detracts from the fine appearance of this albumen print.
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The image offered here comes from a series of photographs commissioned in 1921 by the Cubist painter André Dignimont, who intended to publish a book on Parisian prostitutes.  Although the volume was never realized, Atget's few photographs for the project are now among his most arresting and complex.  Taken in the working class area of Versailles, this study of a young woman standing in a doorway might be mistaken for a modern portrait.   For the audiences of Atget's time, however, the woman's livelihood would have been easily guessed from her attire—the short dress, the high lace-up boots, the fox fur around her shoulders—as well as the large painted number above the door.  One might expect something more sensational for a photograph of a prostitute, but in Atget's study, all traces of eroticism or pornography, long a part of the photographic tradition, are lacking.  What might have been salacious becomes instead a direct and moving photograph of an individual who returns Atget's gaze with a slight, quizzical smile.  It has been suggested that Dignimont, a collector of erotica, did not find the pictures to his liking and therefore did not acquire them. 

 Surprisingly little is known about Atget's life despite the voluminous literature devoted to his work.  For example, it is unknown precisely how or when he took up photography.  It has been established, however, that Atget opened a studio in 1890 where he provided Documents pour Artistes.  He walked the streets of Paris daily, carrying his cumbersome tripod-mounted view camera that he loaded with glass plates.  His methods, producing albumen prints from glass-plate negatives, were already antiquated when this photograph was taken in 1921.  As Versailles, Maison Close, Petite Place, makes clear, it was Atget's unique ability to combine the old Paris with the new, 'modern' Paris that gives his work its resonance.   

This image, Versailles, Maison Close, Petite Place, was filed by Atget in a category of work he referred to as 'Picturesque Paris,' which included forms of popular entertainment, circuses, storefronts, mannequins, and images of tradespeople. The prostitutes are among the least numerous of all of Atget's subjects, and consequently extant prints of them are scarce.  As of this writing, three prints of this image have been located in institutional collections: The Museum of Modern Art, New York; The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles; and The Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, Williamstown, Massachusetts.  Another print of the image was  included in a unique, extra-illustrated copy of the book by Cesare Lombroso and G. Ferrero, La Femme Crimenelle et La Prostituée, sold in these rooms in 1993 (Sale 6407, Lot 237).