Jules André

A chemist and painter who held several positions at the porcelain factory at Sèvres, Robert was among the first artists in France to exploit the possibilities of paper photography. Already an accomplished portraitist in pastel and crayon, his earliest photographs depict his circle of family, friends, and colleagues at Sèvres. In these intimate pictures, Robert translated various conventions of the portrait genre into the new medium. The painter Jules André, for example, is depicted in a formal mode borrowed directly from painting: mahl stick in hand and posed in front of a painted backdrop of classical columns. Other sitters appear in front of a simple draped sheet, an abstracted background, or in natural outdoor settings; still others, in what might be considered some of the earliest occupational photographs, are pictured at work inside the factory. A tireless experimenter, Robert employed both wet and dry paper negatives—adapting the processes published by Gustave LeGray and Louis-Désiré Blanquart-Evrard—to produce prints that he variously toned to a range of colors from neutral black to purple and, as in this portrait of André, chestnut brown. Through exquisite printing and masterful direction of light, Robert transforms what might otherwise be a worn cliché into a picture of remarkable expression.