Exhibition dates: 29th January – 4th May 2014
Charles Marville (French, 1813-1879)
Top of the rue Champlain, View to the Right (Twentieth Arrondissement)
1877-78
Albumen silver print from glass negative
26 x 36.6 cm (10 1/4 x 14 7/16 in.)
Musée Carnavalet, Paris
© Musée Carnavalet / Roger-Viollet
Great news from the State Library of Victoria!
Following further discussions my research can now take place. As you may recall the research question is, did the Charles Marville photographs that were exhibited at the Melbourne International Exhibition in 1880 influence the work of Melbourne photographers – Charles Nettleton, JW Lindt and Nicholas Caire.
The plan is that I research the photographs of Marville, Nettleton, Lindt and Caire online and then visit the Library to view the original prints. The Library have very helpfully sent me records of the visitors book to the 1880 exhibition and noted that Caire, Lindt and Nettleton exhibited photographs and won awards at the 1880-1881 exhibition.
Further, here are some more glorious images from the touring Charles Marville exhibition, this time at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. The tonality of the prints is incredible, as is the subtle placement of the camera to obtain a unique perspective of the city. The almost modernist take on the lamppost as sculptural object, with the dead centre placement allowing the surrounding environment to flow around the verticality of the post, is breathtaking.
Marcus
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Many thankx to The Metropolitan Museum of Art for allowing me to publish the photographs in the posting. Please click on the photographs for a larger version of the image.
Charles Marville (French, 1813-1879)
Banks of the Bièvre River at the Bottom of the rue des Gobelins (Fifth Arrondissement)
c. 1862
Albumen print from collodion negative
27.5 x 36.8cm (10 13/16 x 14 1/2 in.)
Musée Carnavalet, Paris
© Musée Carnavalet / Roger-Viollet
Charles Marville (French, 1813-1879)
Urinal, Jennings System, plateau de l’Ambigu
1876
Albumen silver print from glass negative
26.7 × 36.4cm (10 1/2 × 14 5/16 in.)
Musée Carnavalet, Paris
© Musée Carnavalet / Roger-Viollet
Charles Marville (French, 1813-1879)
Rue de Constantine (Fourth Arrondissement)
1866
Albumen silver print from glass negative
27.3 x 36.8cm (10 3/4 x 14 1/2 in.)
The Horace W. Goldsmith Foundation Gift, through Joyce and Robert Menschel, 1986
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
Charles Marville (French, 1813-1879)
Passage Saint-Guillaume toward the rue Richilieu (First Arrondissement)
1863-65
Albumen silver print from glass negative
31.91 x 27.62cm (12 9/16 x 10 7/8 in.)
Joy of Giving Something, Inc.
Widely acknowledged as one of the most talented photographers of the 19th century, Charles Marville (French, 1813-1879) was commissioned by the city of Paris to document both the picturesque, medieval streets of old Paris and the broad boulevards and grand public structures that Baron Georges-Eugène Haussmann built in their place for Emperor Napoleon III. Charles Marville: Photographer of Paris at The Metropolitan Museum of Art presents a selection of around 100 of his photographs.
Marville achieved moderate success as an illustrator of books and magazines early in his career. It was not until 1850 that he shifted course and took up photography – a medium that had been introduced just 11 years earlier. His poetic urban views, detailed architectural studies, and picturesque landscapes quickly garnered praise. Although he made photographs throughout France, Germany, and Italy, it was his native city – especially its monuments, churches, bridges, and gardens – that provided the artist with his greatest and most enduring source of inspiration.
By the end of the 1850s, Marville had established a reputation as an accomplished and versatile photographer. From 1862, as official photographer for the city of Paris, he documented aspects of the radical modernisation program that had been launched by Emperor Napoleon III and his chief urban planner, Baron Georges-Eugène Haussmann. In this capacity, Marville photographed the city’s oldest quarters, and especially the narrow, winding streets slated for demolition. Even as he recorded the disappearance of Old Paris, Marville turned his camera on the new city that had begun to emerge. Many of his photographs celebrate its glamour and comforts, while other views of the city’s desolate outskirts attest to the unsettling social and physical changes wrought by rapid modernisation.
Haussmann not only redrew the map of Paris, he transformed the urban experience by commissioning and installing tens of thousands of pieces of street furniture, kiosks, Morris columns for posting advertisements, pissoirs, garden gates, and, above all, some twenty thousand gas lamps. By the time he stepped down as prefect in 1870, Paris was no longer a place where residents dared to go out at night only if accompanied by armed men carrying lanterns. Taken as a whole, Marville’s photographs of Paris stand as one of the earliest and most powerful explorations of urban transformation on a grand scale.
By the time of his death, Marville had fallen into relative obscurity, with much of his work stored in municipal or state archives. This exhibition, which marks the bicentennial of Marville’s birth, explores the full trajectory of the artist’s photographic career and brings to light the extraordinary beauty and historical significance of his art.
Related Installation
Concurrent with Charles Marville: Photographer of Paris, a related installation in the adjacent Howard Gilman Gallery will be on view at the Metropolitan Museum. Paris as Muse: Photography, 1840s-1930s (January 27-May 4, 2014) celebrates the first 100 years of photography in Paris and features some 40 photographs, all drawn from the Museum’s collection. The installation focuses primarily on architectural views, street scenes, and interiors. It explores the physical shape and texture of Paris and how artists have found poetic ways to record through the camera its essential qualities.
Press release from The Metropolitan Museum of Art
Charles Marville (French, 1813-1879)
Arts et Métiers (Ancien Modèle)
1864
Albumen silver print from glass negative
36.6 x 24.1cm (14 7/16 x 9 1/2 in.)
Purchase, Alfred Stieglitz Society Gifts, 2007
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
Charles Marville (French, 1813-1879)
Hôtel de la Marine
1864-1870
Albumen silver print from glass negative
36.2 x 23.5cm (14 1/4 x 9 1/4 in.)
National Gallery of Art, Washington, Diana and Mallory Walker Fund
Charles Marville (French, 1813-1879)
Lamppost, Entrance to the École des Beaux-Arts
c. 1870
Albumen silver print from glass negative
35.6 x 25.4cm (14 x 10 in.)
Collection W. Bruce and Delaney H. Lundberg
Charles Marville (French, 1813-1879)
Spire of Notre Dame, Viollet-le-Duc, Architect
1859-1860
Albumen silver print from glass negative
49.5 x 36.5cm (19 1/2 x 14 3/8 in.)
The AIA/AAF Collection, Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress, Washington D.C.
Charles Marville (French, 1813-1879)
Rue Estienne from the rue Boucher (First Arrondissement)
1862-1865
Albumen silver print from glass negative
34.3 x 27.1cm (13 1/2 x 10 11/16 in.)
Gilman Collection, Purchase, Mr. and Mrs. Henry R. Kravis Gift, 2005
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
Charles Marville (French, 1813-1879)
Rue de la Bûcherie from the cul de sac Saint-Ambroise (Fifth Arrondissement)
1866-1868
Albumen silver print from glass negative
32 x 27.1cm (12 5/8 x 10 11/16 in.)
National Gallery of Art, Washington, Horace W. Goldsmith Foundation through Robert and Joyce Menschel
Charles Marville (French, 1813-1879)
Cour Saint-Guillaume (Ninth Arrondissement)
1866-1867
Albumen silver print from glass negative
34.2 x 27.2cm (13 7/16 x 10 11/16 in.)
Gilman Collection, Purchase, Alfred Stieglitz Society Gifts, 2005
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
Charles Marville (French, 1813-1879)
Passage Saint-Benoît (Sixth Arrondissement)
1864-1867
Albumen silver print from glass negative
36.5 x 27.6cm (14 3/8 x 10 7/8)
Musée Carnavalet, Paris
© Musée Carnavalet / Roger-Viollet
Charles Marville (French, 1813-1879)
Impasse de la Bouteille from the rue Montorgeuil (Second Arrondissement)
1865-1868
Albumen silver print from glass negative
35.9 x 27.7cm (14 1/8 x 10 7/8 in.)
Musée Carnavalet, Paris
© Musée Carnavalet / Roger-Viollet
Charles Marville (French, 1813-1879)
Man Reclining beneath a Chestnut Tree
c. 1853
Salted paper print from paper negative
20.9 x 16.2cm (8 1/4 x 6 3/8 in.)
Harris Brisbane Dick Fund, 1946
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
The Metropolitan Museum of Art
1000 Fifth Avenue at 82nd Street
New York, New York 10028-0198
Phone: 212-535-7710
Opening hours:
Sunday – Tuesday and Thursday: 10am – 5pm
Friday and Saturday: 10am – 9pm
Closed Wednesday
The Metropolitan Museum of Art website
Art Blart _ art and cultural memory archive 
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