Versailles, Bosquet de l'Arc de Triomphe
Medium
Albumen print
Dimensions
Image/paper: 22 × 17.8 cm (8 11/16 × 7 1/16 in.)
Classification
albumen silver print
Department
Photography and Media
Museum
Art Institute of Chicago
Accession Number
124132
Art Historical Context
Step into the enchanting gardens of Versailles through Jean-Eugène-Auguste Atget's *Versailles, Bosquet l'Arc de Triomphe* (1904), an albumen silver print that captures a secluded grove featuring a classical arc de triomphe. Atget, a pioneering French photographer (1857–1927), devoted his career to meticulously documenting the architecture, streets, and landscapes of Paris and its environs at the turn of the 20th century. His unadorned, straight-on approach preserved vanishing traces of old France, influencing later artists like the Surrealists and modernist photographers such as Berenice Abbo...
About the Artist
Jean-Eugène-Auguste Atget · 1857–1927
Jean-Eugène-Auguste Atget was born on February 12, 1857, in Libourne, France, to working-class parents—a carriage maker father who died in 1862 and a mother who passed away soon after, orphaning him at age six or seven. Raised by his maternal grandparents in Bordeaux, Atget briefly pursued a seafaring life before moving to Paris in the late 1870s to study acting at the Conservatoire d'art dramatiq...