{
"data": {
"id": 153597,
"accession_number": "1987.130",
"share_license_status": "CC0",
"tombstone": "The Bridge of Palalda (near Amelieles-Bains) , 1851\u201352. Gustave Le Gray (French, 1820\u20131884). Salted paper print from waxed-paper negative; image: 23.8 x 32.7 cm (9 3/8 x 12 7/8 in.); matted: 50.8 x 61 cm (20 x 24 in.). The Cleveland Museum of Art, John L. Severance Fund, 1987.130",
"current_location": null,
"title": "The Bridge of Palalda (near Amelieles-Bains) ",
"creation_date": "1851\u201352",
"creation_date_earliest": 1851,
"creation_date_latest": 1852,
"artists_tags": [
"male"
],
"culture": [
"France, 19th century"
],
"technique": "salted paper print from waxed-paper negative",
"support_materials": [],
"department": "Photography",
"collection": "PH - French 19th Century",
"type": "Photograph",
"measurements": "Image: 23.8 x 32.7 cm (9 3/8 x 12 7/8 in.); Matted: 50.8 x 61 cm (20 x 24 in.)",
"dimensions": {
"image": {
"height": 0.238,
"height_inch": 9,
"height_inch_fraction": 0.375,
"width": 0.327,
"width_inch": 12,
"width_inch_fraction": 0.875
},
"matted": {
"height": 0.508,
"height_inch": 20,
"height_inch_fraction": 0.0,
"width": 0.61,
"width_inch": 24,
"width_inch_fraction": 0.0
}
},
"state_of_the_work": null,
"edition_of_the_work": null,
"copyright": null,
"inscriptions": [
{
"inscription": "Written in pencil on recto of mount: \"Gustave LeGray c. 1851\"; in pencil on verso: \"Le Gray\"; \"g [in center of a triangle - monogram ?]\"",
"inscription_translation": null,
"inscription_remark": null,
"sortorder": null
}
],
"exhibitions": {
"current": [
{
"id": 310231,
"title": "The Year in Review for 1987",
"description": "The Year in Review for 1987. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (February 24-April 17, 1988).",
"opening_date": "1988-02-24T05:00:00"
},
{
"id": 178867,
"title": "Drawn with Light: Pioneering French Photography from the Cleveland Museum of Art",
"description": "Drawn with Light: Pioneering French Photography from the Cleveland Museum of Art. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (February 26-June 16, 2005).",
"opening_date": "2005-02-26T00:00:00"
},
{
"id": 197576,
"title": "France at the Dawn of Photography",
"description": "France at the Dawn of Photography. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (October 4, 2009-January 24, 2010).",
"opening_date": "2009-10-04T00:00:00"
},
{
"id": 705705,
"title": "France in the Time of Manet and Morisot",
"description": "France in the Time of Manet and Morisot. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (May 10-August 23, 2026).",
"opening_date": "2026-05-10T04:00:00"
}
],
"legacy": [
{
"description": "CMA, February 24 - April 17, 1988: \"Year in Review 1987,\" CMA Bulletin, 75 (February 1988), p. 67, no. 65.",
"opening_date": "1988-02-24T00:00:00"
},
{
"description": "Cleveland, Ohio: The Cleveland Museum of Art; February 26 - June 16, 2005 . \"Drawn with Light: Pioneering French Photography from the Cleveland Museum of Art\".",
"opening_date": "2005-02-26T00:00:00"
},
{
"description": "The Cleveland Museum of Art (10/04/2009 - 01/24/2010); \"France at the Dawn of Photography\"",
"opening_date": "2009-10-04T00:00:00"
}
]
},
"provenance": [],
"find_spot": null,
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"did_you_know": "The sheer cliff seems to blend into the bridge mentioned in the work's title, resulting in visual uncertainty and spatial tension.",
"early_education_description": null,
"artlens_description": null,
"description": "In 1851, Gustave Le Gray and his friend, photographer Auguste Mestral, traveled throughout southwestern France for the Commission of Historic French Monuments to document sites of historical importance, especially those in urgent need of, or undergoing, restoration. This image was taken from the left bank of the Tech River, situated below the old town of Palalda, four miles from the Spanish border. Le Gray stressed the rugged landscape over a close-up rendering of the ancient bridge, which was not on his list of assigned sites.",
"external_resources": {
"wikidata": [
"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q79939521"
],
"internet_archive": [
"https://archive.org/details/clevelandart-1987.130-the-bridge-of-palald"
]
},
"citations": [
{
"citation": "Cleveland Museum of Art, Tom E Hinson. Catalogue of Photography. Cleveland, OH: Cleveland Museum of Art, 1996.",
"page_number": "Reproduced: P. 221",
"url": ""
},
{
"citation": "Hinson, Tom E. \"The Monet of Photography.\" Cleveland Art: Cleveland Museum of Art Members Magazine 45, no. 4 (April 2005): 6-8.",
"page_number": "Mentioned and reproduced: p. 6",
"url": "https://archive.org/details/CMAMM2005-04/page/6/mode/2up"
}
],
"url": "https://clevelandart.org/art/1987.130",
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"creditline": "John L. Severance Fund",
"image_credit": null,
"sketchfab_id": null,
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{
"id": 568,
"description": "Gustave Le Gray (French, 1820\u20131884)",
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"biography": "Gustave Le Gray French, 1820-1884\r\n\r\nA master both technically and aesthetically, Gustave Le Gray (born in Villiers-le-Bel) was one of the most important figures in 19th-century French photography, bringing to the medium artistic integrity and visual imagination. Le Gray, trained as a painter, was exhibiting his work in the Paris Salons in the late 1840s and early 1850s when he became interested in photography. Along with Henri Le Secq and Charles N\u00e8gre, he was a student of Paul Delaroche, a painter of considerable reputation and ability who was one of the first to grasp the importance of photography.\r\n\tIn 1851 Le Gray announced his invention of a waxed paper negative, a significant improvement over earlier paper methods that was later adopted by Louis de Clercq, Dr. August Jakob Lorent, and others. That same year the Commission des Monuments historiques named him as one of five photographers of the Mission h\u00e9liographique, for which he produced well-known studies of army maneuvers at Chalons. Le Gray also worked with Fran\u00e7ois Arago, the scientist and champion of Louis-Jacques-Mand\u00e9 Daguerre, and later proposed a new method of toning prints, among other innovations.\r\n\tLe Gray was perhaps most admired for the effects he achieved with water and sky. To capture the subtle qualities of cloud patterns in some of his seascapes, he employed two negatives to produce the final image. His commissioned studies of historic monuments are classic examples of early architectural photography. In the early 1850s he worked in the Barbizon tradition at Fontainebleau and, in 1860, documented the uprising against Fran\u00e7ois II in Palermo. He was a founding member of the Soci\u00e9t\u00e9 h\u00e9liographique and the Soci\u00e9t\u00e9 fran\u00e7aise de photographie. Despite his influence and artistic success, Le Gray left Paris in 1865 to become a professor of design at the \u00c9cole Polytechnique in Cairo. He died in Egypt. T.W.F.",
"name_in_original_language": null,
"birth_year": "1820",
"death_year": "1884",
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"legal_status": "accessioned",
"accession_date": "1987-09-21T00:00:00",
"sortable_date": 1851,
"date_added_to_oa": null,
"date_text": "1851\u201352",
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"updated_at": "2026-09-09 19:14:07.113000"
}
}