Etienne-Jules Marey

albumen print, mounted to light green card, reduction notations in ink on the mount, initialed and inscribed by André Jammes 'Anc. coll. Sirot / Marey / Provient de Demeny' in pencil and with his printed 'aj.' label on the reverse, framed, a San Francisco Museum of Modern Art exhibition label on the reverse, circa 1883

The photographer to his assistant, Georges Demeny

By descent to Demeny's nephew

Collection of Georges Sirot

Collection of André Jammes, Paris

Sotheby's London, La Photographie. Collection Marie-Thérèse et André Jammes, 27 October 1999, Sale 9316, Lot 92

San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Brought to Light: Photography and the Invisible, 1840-1900, October 2008 - January 2009, and traveling to the Albertina, Vienna, March - June 2009

Corey Keller, ed., Brought to Light: Photography and the Invisible, 1840-1900 (San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, 2008), pl. 80 (this print)

E. J. Marey, Movement (New York, 1895, translated edition), fig. 163 (reversed)

Grading this albumen print on a scale of 1 to 10 - a 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 print's dark tones are somewhat light overall, likely due to the way the photograph was printed rather than a consequence of fading. The tiny scratches and particles of dust that are visible appear to be in the negative and not a factor of the present print. In raking light, faint, uneven silvering in the dark areas, a few very small matte areas, and some scratches and impressions are visible upon close examination. There is minor wear to the margin edges and corners. The print is affixed to two-toned light green card, and it is lifting from the mount at the lower left corner. There is a vertical crease affecting both the print and the mount, which is visible in the catalogue illustration. The area where the print is creased is lighter in tonality. Two linear deposits of graphite run horizontally through the print and mount. The mount is soiled and age-darkened at the periphery. There are large creases and small tears at the edges of the mount. The reduction notations in fluid blue ink are as follows: '88mm,' 'BD/93/2,' and 'A' [circled].
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Physiologist Etienne-Jules Marey was already famous for his research into blood circulation and human and animal locomotion when he read about Eadweard Muybridge's photographic motion studies in La Nature in December 1878.  The two men began a correspondence that inspired Marey to use photography in his physiological research, creating some of the most captivating images of the nineteenth century. 

Beginning in 1882, Marey conducted motion study experiments at ‘Station Physiologique,’ a state-endowed outdoor laboratory in Bois de Boulogne, where he designed a fixed-plate chronophotograph camera capable of capturing sequential images of movement on a single photographic plate.  In Mouvement, first published in 1894, Marey described in detail the chronophotographic process and his findings on aerial locomotion: ‘If a white bird, brightly illuminated by the sun, is photographed in series as it crosses in front of a dark background, its various attitudes will be clearly seen.  In these photographs the bending of the wings due to the resistance of the air is usually quite evident, and it expresses in a striking manner the force with which the wing is moved . . . it is very pronounced in the case of a flying heron, just when the wing reaches the mid phase of descent.’

Marey and Muybridge worked along parallel paths, but the difference between the two photographers' output is significant; whereas Muybridge's work shows the movement of his subject in a sequence of photographs, Marey's studies show a range of motion captured in one image.  Marey's work remains modern well over a century after it was made.  His concept of compressing a span of time into a single photograph provided the foundation for Harold Edgerton's explorations into stroboscopic photography in the 1930s (see Lot 95).