Emile De Girardin

Art Historical Context

This striking woodburytype portrait captures Émile de Girardin, the influential French journalist and newspaper publisher, around 1875–77. Created by the photographer Fontaine, the image originally appeared in the prestigious periodical *Galerie Contemporaine Littéraire, Artistique* (1877), volume 2—a publication dedicated to documenting leading cultural and political figures of the era through high-quality photographic reproductions. The woodburytype process itself represents a pinnacle of 19th-century photographic printing. Invented by Walter B. Woodbury in 1866, it produced rich, continuous-tone images with exceptional depth and permanence by pressing a gelatin relief into ink. Unlike typical halftone reproductions, these prints offered a velvety, almost three-dimensional quality that made them ideal for elegant periodicals. Here, the technique lends a dignified, almost sculptural presence to Girardin’s likeness, reflecting the era’s growing fascination with photography as both art and historical record. Housed in the Art Institute of Chicago’s Photography and Media department, this work (measuring 23.8 × 19 cm on its original mount) exemplifies how photography entered the public sphere in the 1870s, bridging fine art and mass media to preserve the faces of notable contemporaries for future generations.