[Water fowl]

ca. 1865

Not on view

The camera and the gun are often compared, and the common parlance of photographers—who "stalk" and "shoot" their subjects—suggests a predatory tendency well suited to this sort of still life. Centuries before the discovery of photography, felled fowl and other game were a favorite subject of still-life painters. Revisiting the genre in the 1860s, French photographers made a case for the new medium’s artistic legitimacy, producing luxuriously large albumen prints fit to rival any canvas (and, in some cases, to inspire them). The unknown maker of this work registers not only a dramatic gradient of feathers, but also the rich tonality of the wooden backboard. Cropping out excess detail, their camera captures the spoils of a hunt with spare finality.

Artwork Details

Overview

Signatures, Inscriptions, and Markings

Provenance

Title: [Water fowl]
Artist: Longjumeau's Amateur (French, active 1860s–70s)
Date: ca. 1865
Medium: Albumen silver print from glass negative
Dimensions: Image: 15 in. × 11 1/4 in. (38.1 × 28.5 cm)
Mount: 24 15/16 in. × 18 7/8 in. (63.3 × 47.9 cm)
Classification: Photographs
Credit Line: The Horace W. Goldsmith Foundation Fund, through Joyce and Robert Menschel, 2023
Object Number: 2023.223
Curatorial Department: Photographs

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[Still life of fowl, three birds arranged on a table]

Longjumeau's Amateur

ca. 1865

[Still life of fowl, bird with dark feathers on belly]

Longjumeau's Amateur

ca. 1865

Château de St.-Germain-en-Laye, Intérieur de la cour, Chapelle, Médéric Mieusement French, Albumen silver print from glass negative — Château de St.-Germain-en-Laye, Intérieur de la cour, Chapelle
Médéric Mieusement
1862–67

Electro–Physiologie, Figure 64, Adrien Tournachon French, Albumen silver print from glass negative — Electro–Physiologie, Figure 64
Adrien Tournachon
Guillaume-Benjamin-Amand Duchenne de Boulogne
1854–56, printed 1862

[Construction Site], Louis Lafon French, Albumen silver print from glass negative — [Construction Site]
Louis Lafon
1880s

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