Charles Marville

albumen print, mounted, the photographer's blindstamp, numerical notations in pencil, and a hand-ruled paper label, titled in ink, on the mount, 1860s

Beaussant Lefèvre Paris, Photographies, 30 November 1996, Lot 142

Marie de Thézy, Marville Paris (Paris, 1994), p. 443

Peter Sramek, Piercing Time: Paris After Marville and Atget, 1865-2012 (Bristol and Chicago, 2013), p. 40, pl. 1.04.

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 strong 10. It has rich, dark eggplant tones, bright creamy highlights, and a smooth semi-glossy surface. The print delivers an exceptional level of detail: from the horse-drawn carriages lining the cobblestone street, to the intricate wrought iron window boxes and street lamps, to the onlookers, both stationary and captured in a blur of movement. There is no apparent fading. This print is in generally excellent condition. Upon very close examination in raking light, scattered tiny deposits of original retouching (some of which appear to have darkened with age) are visible overall. This print is trimmed to the image, and there is a very small nick along the upper edge. The print is on a large, white, heavy paper mount. The photographer's blindstamp reads: 'Ch. Marville / Photographe / des Musées Nationaux / 75, rue d'Enfer / Paris.' The left and right mount edges are rippled, and there is a resultant one-inch crease that does not break the emulsion along the left edge. There is some graphite offsetting on the mount from a mat, as well as light soiling and age-darkening at the periphery. Faint scattered foxing on the mount does not appear to affect the image. The numbers '142' and '443D' are in an unidentified modern hand in pencil along the lower mount edge. On the reverse of the mount, '220' is in an unidentified hand in pencil.
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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 to document the older quarters of Paris 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 intersection of Rue des Moineaux, Rue des Orties, and Rue des Moulins in the 1^st arrondissement.  These streets and buildings were razed in 1876 for the construction of the wide modern boulevard, Avenue de l’Opéra.