Victor Hugo by Étienne Carjat 1876 - full
1876
- Classification
- Photograph
- Museum
- Wikimedia Commons
- Credit line
- Bibliothèque nationale de France
- Rights
- Public domain, as the museum states it.
- Who can see it
- Tweens profiles and older: its subjects are known and suit older children. How works are placed
About this work
Portrait photograph of Victor Hugo published in the widely distributed serial publication entitled Galerie contemporaine, littéraire, artistique. Issued in parts from 1876 to 1884 by the firm of Goupil & Cie, the series contained 241 portraits of leading figures from the worlds of art, literature, music, science, and politics by a host of Parisian photographers. The illustrations were printed as woodburytypes–a photomechanical process that reproduced the continuous tones of photography but did so with pigmented gelatin molded to a varying thickness. The speed and economy with which woodburytypes could be printed, as well as their permanence (unlike traditional photographic processes that were subject to fading), made them a highly practical substitute for albumen silver prints in book publication or other situations where mass production was desirable.
