Untitled (Longchamp Racetrack)
Artist
Anonymous
CultureFrench
Dateca. 1866
MediumAlbumen print from collodian negative
Dimensions7 × 9 in. (17.8 × 22.9 cm)
Credit LineMuseum purchase in memory of Alice R. and Sol B. Frank
Object number2024.23
On View
Chrysler Museum of Art, Gallery 228
Label TextUnknown photographer French, active 1860s Untitled (Longchamp Racetrack), ca. 1866 Albumen print from collodion negative With the construction in 1857 of Longchamp Racetrack in the Bois de Boulogne, wealthy patrons in elegant carriages parked opposite the stands to ogle royalty, financiers, and courtesans. A daring photographer, setting up his camera during a break between events, captured what Émile Zola described in his celebrated novel Nana as “a compact, confused mass of people…a dark background relieved by light dots, which were human faces.” Here the blurs are accidental, but they evoke the loose brushwork seen in work by the contemporary painters Manet and Monet. Museum purchase T2024.18.1 ProvenanceSerge Kakou.116, Rue St Denis 75002 Paris France to Chrysler Museum of ArtExhibition History"New Frames of Reference: Early French Photographers at Home and Abroad," Chrysler Museum of Art, Norfolk, Va, gallery 228, September 5, 2024 - February 16, 2025.
