When you click on links to various merchants on this site and make a purchase, this can result in this site earning a commission. Affiliate programs and affiliations include, but are not limited to, the eBay Partner Network.
Bayard was one of the foundational figures in the earliest history of photography in France. This architectural image dates from his photographic work in Paris during the 1840s. The composition looks dramatically through the colonnade of La Madeleine, with its massive columns, repeating shadows and iron railing converging toward the distant building framed at the end of the passage.
This is a later photographic print and is not being represented as an 1840s vintage print. Institutional collections document later gelatin silver prints made from Bayard's original paper negatives preserved by the Société Française de Photographie (SFP). Comparable SFP Bayard prints were produced in more than one later printing campaign, including examples from 1965 and 1979; I have not established the specific printing date of this example.
Verso: The reverse bears the rectangular copyright/reproduction stamp of the Société Française de Photographie, Paris, identifying the SFP collection and reserving reproduction rights. It is additionally identified in manuscript “Hippolyte Bayard / La Madeleine,” together with the notation “24 / IV / 15,” consistent with the numbering system used for Bayard material in the SFP collection.
The SFP stamp translates in substance as reserving rights of use and reproduction and requiring, upon reproduction, acknowledgment of the Collection Société Française de Photographie, submission of a supporting copy, and payment of reproduction rights.
Provenance: From the estate of photographer and longtime San Francisco State University photography professor Neal White.
Condition: Good vintage condition overall.
