GUSTAVE LE GRAY | LE BRICK AU CLAIR DE LUNE (BRIG ON THE WATER)

Geoffroy Auctions, Royan, 2002

Eugenia Parry Janis, The Photographs of Gustave Le Gray (The Art Institute of Chicago, 1987), frontispiece 

Ken Jacobson, The Lovely Sea-View: A Study of the Marine Photographs Published by Gustave Le Gray, 1856-1858 (Petches Bridge, 2001), title page and fig. 2

Sylvie Aubenas et al., Gustave Le Gray 1820-1884 (Los Angeles: The J. Paul Getty Museum, 2002), fig. 128 and cat. 109

Gustave Le Gray’s large-format seascape Brig on the Water was shown at a private meeting of the Photographic Society of London on 6 November 1856, more than a month before a print of this marine study made its public debut at the Society’s December exhibition. Le Gray’s photographic innovations, both technical and aesthetic, sparked high praise and great demand for prints of this image. The photographer continued to make additional seascapes in 1857-58 (see also Lot 109). Typical of many of Le Gray’s works, this albumen print was toned with his unique gold-chloride process to imbue it with red highlights.

Prints of this image are in the following collections: the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; the J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles; the Art Institute of Chicago; the Princeton University Art Museum; the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, Williamstown; the Musée d’Orsay, Paris; and the Victoria & Albert Museum, London.