Charles Baudelaire (French poet, critic, and writer, 1821-1867)
c. 1863
Medium
Woodburytype, from the periodical “Galerie Contemporaine Littéraire, Artistique” (1878), volume 5
Dimensions
23.1 × 18.1 cm (9 1/8 × 7 3/16 in.)
Classification
woodburytype
Department
Photography and Media
Museum
Art Institute of Chicago
Accession Number
86945
Rights
Public Domain
About this artwork
Although the French poet Charles Baudelaire had disparaged photography as a refuge for failed painters and condemned society for rushing “like Narcissus, to contemplate its trivial image on a metallic plate,” he posed for his own portrait several times. Etienne Carjat, a draftsman turned photographer who had opened a commercial portrait studio in 1860, produced this image of a brooding Baudelaire, which became famous well beyond the poet’s lifetime. It was included in La galerie contemporaine, a...
About the Artist
Etienne Carjat · 1828–1906
Étienne Carjat (1828–1906) was a French photographer, caricaturist, and journalist who became one of the defining portraitists of nineteenth-century Parisian cultural life. Born in Fareins in the Ain department, he arrived in Paris as a young man and initially made his name as a caricaturist and writer, contributing to several satirical publications and cofounding the journal Le Boulevard in 1861....