Self-portrait
Artist
Charles Nègre
(French, 1820 - 1880)
Dateca. 1860
MediumSalt print
DimensionsImage and sheet: 7 5/8 × 5 7/16 inches (19.37 × 13.81 cm)
Mount: 15 7/8 × 11 1/8 inches (40.32 × 28.26 cm)
Mount: 15 7/8 × 11 1/8 inches (40.32 × 28.26 cm)
Credit LineGift of the Hall Family Foundation
Object number2017.61.26
Signednone
Inscribednone
Markingsnone
On View
Not on viewCollections
DescriptionImage of a bearded man in three-quarter profile leaning against a wall with one foot resting on a stair just outside of a door. He is wearing a turban and long garment with one hand on his hip and the other tucked into a fabric belt. There is a cobblestone path and a striped piece of fabric draped behind him.Gallery Label
In this self-portrait, Charles Nègre dons a vaguely Eastern costume like those commonly seen in Orientalist paintings. Far more imaginary than real, such costumes and works of art were part of a collective fantasy about life outside of Europe in the 1800s. Nègre first began making photographs in 1844, as aids for his paintings, but would soon become a pioneer of early French photography, championing its unique artistic potential. “The chemist prepares the paper, the artist directs the lens,” wrote Nègre, “and by means of the three beacons that guide him ceaselessly in the study of nature—observation, feeling, and reasoning—he reproduces the effects that make us dream.”
Nègre Family Collection;
Joseph Nègre, great-grandson of the artist;
with Charles Isaacs Photographs, Inc., New York, NY by 1993;
Purchased from him by Howard Stein (1926-2011) , New York, NY, 1993;
His gift to The Joy of Giving Foundation, New York, NY;
Purchased at their sale The Odyssey of Collecting: Photographs from Joy of Giving Something, Phillips, New York, NY, April 3, 2017, lot 38 by The Hall Family Foundation, Kansas City, MO, 2017;
Their gift to The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, 2017.
Joseph Nègre, great-grandson of the artist;
with Charles Isaacs Photographs, Inc., New York, NY by 1993;
Purchased from him by Howard Stein (1926-2011) , New York, NY, 1993;
His gift to The Joy of Giving Foundation, New York, NY;
Purchased at their sale The Odyssey of Collecting: Photographs from Joy of Giving Something, Phillips, New York, NY, April 3, 2017, lot 38 by The Hall Family Foundation, Kansas City, MO, 2017;
Their gift to The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, 2017.
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Charles Nègre
1859
2017.44.11
