Item #29970 GALERIE DES CONTEMPORAINS. Disdéri, André-Adolphe-Eugène.
GALERIE DES CONTEMPORAINS.
GALERIE DES CONTEMPORAINS.
GALERIE DES CONTEMPORAINS.
GALERIE DES CONTEMPORAINS.

GALERIE DES CONTEMPORAINS. Text by Dollingen. Portraits by Disdéri.

Paris: Chez les Auteurs, n.d. (1860 - 1862). Disdéri, André-Adolphe-Eugène. First edition. 16mos. 15 original albumen photographic portraits (ca. 3 1/4 x 2 inches) mounted on printed stiff paper mounts (ca. 5 3/4 x 4 1/5 inches). 14 of the portraits are each housed in their original printed paper folder, which includes a printed biographical text (4 pp.). A few issues show mild dampstaining; on one issue, the wrapper cover has transferred small pieces which have adhered to the photo edges. Most are in very good or better condition. Housed in a calf and marbled paper clamshell box with label on spine. Item #29970

André-Adolphe-Eugène Disdéri, a Parisian, was the official photographer to the court of Napoleon III; he is credited with the popularization of the cartes-de-visite in the 1850s; in 1854, he obtained a patent for a standard format of 4 x 2 1/2 inches.

Among the portraits offered here are: Comte de Cavour, Suzanne Lagier, Sir Robert Peel, Emanuel Gonzalès, Parade, Mlle. Figeac, Les Frères Lionnet, P.- C. Hugier, and S.M. Napoléon III.

The complete GALERIE DES CONTEMPORAINS was published fortnightly as individual fasicules with a carte-de-visite portrait accompanied by a biography of the sitter, and could be purchased according to taste, or in bound volumes of twenty-five.

Complete sets are rare, with WorldCat locating only the Bibliotheque Nationale de France; the sets at George Eastman House, Getty Research Institure, Cornell, the British Library, the Rijksmuseum, and the Biblioteca Nacional de Espana all have partial sets. Bellier de la Chavignerie, Manuel Bibliographie du Photographe Francais, 1863, fails to list this title.

Price: $1,000.00