[Louis Robert, Onésipe Aguado, Olympe Aguado, Baron von Stoffel and others at the Aguado Country Estate, Grossouvre, France]
The imposing size of this photograph—unusual for a nineteenth-century group portrait—imparts a sense of importance to the activity depicted therein: seven onlookers stare intently at three men crouched on the ground in front of a well. Have the men made a discovery? Are they plotting something critical to the future of the estate? Or are they simply playing a game of… chicken? Closer scrutiny reveals that the men (identified in the caption as the photographers, Louis Robert and Onésipe Aguado, and the French officer, Baron von Stoffel) are playing a game with coins or discs that seems to be related to galine (also known as poule, or chicken) in which players attempt to get their coin closest to a target. The game is simply a ruse to pose members of the Aguado family and some friends for a bravado feat of photography orchestrated on their country estate in Grossouvre, France.
Artwork Details
- Title: [Louis Robert, Onésipe Aguado, Olympe Aguado, Baron von Stoffel and others at the Aguado Country Estate, Grossouvre, France]
- Artist: Louis-Rémy Robert (French, 1810–1882)
- Person in Photograph: Person in photograph Olympe Aguado de las Marismas (French, Paris 1827–1894 Compiegne)
- Person in Photograph: Person in photograph Onésipe Aguado de las Marismas (French, Evry 1830–1893 Paris)
- Date: 1860
- Medium: Salted paper print from paper negative
- Dimensions: Image: 16 in. × 20 1/4 in. (40.6 × 51.4 cm)
Mount: 18 1/8 in. × 21 9/16 in. (46 × 54.7 cm) - Classification: Photographs
- Credit Line: The Horace W. Goldsmith Foundation Fund, through Joyce and Robert Menschel, 2023
- Object Number: 2023.222
- Curatorial Department: Photographs
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