id: 160714 accession number: 1998.73 share license status: CC0 url: https://clevelandart.org/art/1998.73 updated: 2024-03-26 02:00:38.169000 Portrait of Edmond Cottinet (1824-1895), c. 1848–50. Gustave Le Gray (French, 1820–1884). Salted paper print from a paper negative; image: 20.5 x 13.9 cm (8 1/16 x 5 1/2 in.); matted: 61 x 50.8 cm (24 x 20 in.). The Cleveland Museum of Art, Purchase from the J. H. Wade Fund 1998.73 title: Portrait of Edmond Cottinet (1824-1895) title in original language: series: series in original language: creation date: c. 1848–50 creation date earliest: 1848 creation date latest: 1850 current location: creditline: Purchase from the J. H. Wade Fund copyright: --- culture: France, 19th century technique: salted paper print from a paper negative department: Photography collection: PH - French 19th Century type: Photograph find spot: catalogue raisonne: --- CREATORS * Gustave Le Gray (French, 1820–1884) - artist Gustave Le Gray French, 1820-1884 A 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 Nègre, 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. In 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 héliographique, for which he produced well-known studies of army maneuvers at Chalons. Le Gray also worked with François Arago, the scientist and champion of Louis-Jacques-Mandé Daguerre, and later proposed a new method of toning prints, among other innovations. Le 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 François II in Palermo. He was a founding member of the Société héliographique and the Société française de photographie. Despite his influence and artistic success, Le Gray left Paris in 1865 to become a professor of design at the École Polytechnique in Cairo. He died in Egypt. T.W.F. --- measurements: Image: 20.5 x 13.9 cm (8 1/16 x 5 1/2 in.); Matted: 61 x 50.8 cm (24 x 20 in.) state of the work: edition of the work: support materials: inscriptions: inscription: Printed on recto of mount: "No."/ written in pencil 40f(?); written in ink 40f(?) translation: remark: --- CURRENT EXHIBITIONS title: 19th-Century French Portrait Photography from the Cleveland Museum of Art opening date: 2000-05-27T00:00:00 19th-Century French Portrait Photography from the Cleveland Museum of Art. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (May 27-August 9, 2000). title: Drawn with Light: Pioneering French Photography from the Cleveland Museum of Art opening date: 2005-02-26T00:00:00 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). title: France at the Dawn of Photography opening date: 2009-10-04T00:00:00 France at the Dawn of Photography. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (October 4, 2009-January 24, 2010). title: Cheating Death: Portrait Photography’s First Half Century opening date: 2016-10-22T04:00:00 Cheating Death: Portrait Photography’s First Half Century. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (October 22, 2016-February 5, 2017). --- LEGACY EXHIBITIONS * {'description': 'Galeries Mansart and Mazarine, Richelieu, France, March 19 - June 16, 2002: "Gustave Le Gray, 1820-1884." Aubenas, Sylvie. Gustave Le Gray, 1820-1884 (Gallimard: Bibliothèque nationale de France, 2002). (Also exhibited at The Getty Museum, Los Angeles, July 9 - Sept. 29, 2002). Catalogue no. 58, p. 55, repr. p. 55.', 'opening_date': '2002-03-19T00:00:00'} --- PROVENANCE French private collection date: footnotes: citations: --- fun fact: digital description: wall description: --- RELATED WORKS --- CITATIONS --- IMAGES web: https://openaccess-cdn.clevelandart.org/1998.73/1998.73_web.jpg print: https://openaccess-cdn.clevelandart.org/1998.73/1998.73_print.jpg full: https://openaccess-cdn.clevelandart.org/1998.73/1998.73_full.tif