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Echelles Pass, Savoie, France
Echelles Pass, Savoie, France

Echelles Pass, Savoie, France

Original Language TitleSavoie 43, Le Passage des Echelles
Artist Bisson Frères (French, Auguste-Rosalie (1826-1900); Louis-Auguste (1814-1876))
Date1861
MediumAlbumen print
DimensionsImage and sheet: 8 9/16 × 14 1/8 inches (21.74 × 35.88 cm)
Credit LineGift of the Hall Family Foundation
Object number2018.28.4
Signednone
Inscribednone
Markingsnone
On View
Not on view
Collections
DescriptionImage of a group of mountaineers crossing a crevasse and ascending an ice-covered mountain. They travel in a line (mostly in profile) each dressed in coats with hats, carrying ice axes, and holding a rope that extends from the first to the last.Gallery Label

The Alpine views produced by Auguste-Rosalie and Louis-Auguste Bisson between 1859 and 1862 were among the earliest photographs of the mountainous region. Sold through the brothers’ Parisian studio (the Bisson Frères), these photographs astonished the public, who saw them as truthful records of a place most had never seen with their own eyes. Images like this served a documentary function, though the figures were posed to achieve the artists’ desired composition.

Provenance
The Hall Family Foundation, Kansas City, MO, 2018;   
Their gift to The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, 2018.
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