Sculptural Frieze by Cavelier, Minerva Surrounded by the Muses of the Arts
Adolphe Terris (French, 1820–1900)
c. 1868
- Medium
- Cyanotype
- Classification
- Photograph
- Dimensions
- 27.5 × 37.5 cm (image); 27.5 × 38.1 (paper)
- Culture
- France
- Museum
- Art Institute of Chicago, Photography and Media
- Credit line
- The Mary and Leigh Block Endowment Fund
- Rights
- Public domain (CC0), as the museum states it.
- Who can see it
- Teens profiles and older: its subject is for older viewers (war, death, the Passion, drink or the like). How works are placed
View at the Art Institute of Chicago
About this work
A founding member of the Société Marseillaise de Photographie, Adolphe Terris was commissioned over a nearly 20-year period beginning in the early 1860s to document the large-scale public construction projects that were modernizing the city of Marseilles. He photographed the medieval streets of the old city as well as the newer railroad tracks, canals, boulevards, and government buildings. A print such as this would have been used as a reference for an architect (cyanotypes, or blue prints, could be made relatively easily and quickly), who could show building sponsors different proposed ornaments. Terris's image of a plaster study by sculptor Pierre-Jules Cavelier reveals that even in a forward-looking building campaign, the preferred decoration harkened back to classical motifs.
Description © Art Institute of Chicago, CC BY 4.0
