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[The Great Wave, Sète]

1857
Not on view
The dramatic effects of sunlight, clouds, and water in Le Gray's seascapes stunned his contemporaries and immediately brought him international recognition. At a time when photographic emulsions were not equally sensitive to all colors of the spectrum, most photographers found it impossible to achieve proper exposure of both landscape and sky in a single picture. Le Gray solved this problem by printing two negatives on a single sheet of paper: one exposed for the sea, the other for the sky, and sometimes made on separate occasions or in different locations. Le Gray's marine pictures caused a sensation not only because their simultaneous depiction of sea and heavens represented a technical tour de force, but also because the resulting poetic effect was without precedent in photography.

Artwork Details

Object Information
  • Title: [The Great Wave, Sète]
  • Artist: Gustave Le Gray (French, 1820–1884)
  • Date: 1857
  • Medium: Albumen silver print from glass negative
  • Dimensions: 33.7 x 41.4 cm (13 1/4 x 16 5/16 in.)
  • Classification: Photographs
  • Credit Line: Gift of John Goldsmith Phillips, 1976
  • Object Number: 1976.646
  • Curatorial Department: Photographs

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1852
[An Italian Street Musician], Gustave Le Gray French, Albumen silver print from glass negative
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