[Water fowl]

Longjumeau's Amateur French

On view at The Met Fifth Avenue in Gallery 850

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.

[Water fowl], Longjumeau's Amateur (French, active 1860s–70s), Albumen silver print from glass negative

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