[The 15th of August. Imperial Asylum at Vincennes]
Charles Nègre French
Not on view
The Imperial Asylum at Vincennes, in a former royal park at the eastern end of Paris, was established by Napoleon III to provide those injured on the construction site or in the factory-"the worker's true field of honor," in the words of the minister of the interior-with care comparable to that given to the nation's military veterans. Nègre was commissioned to photograph the new hospital and to produce copies of a celebratory album in which this photograph appeared as the first plate. Here, the convalescing patients doff their hats to their benefactor, whose sculpted surrogate is the focus of the picture.
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