Of Bricks & Light: Fabled Façades

 

Édouard-Denis Baldus (France, 1813-1889): “Porte de la Bibliothèque du Louvre (quai).” Albumen print, 8-1/2″ x 10-1/2″ circa 1860.  On mount with “E. Baldus” signature hand-stamp and numbered in pencil “72.”

Baldus was one of the greatest architectural photographers of the nineteenth century; he produced an extensive series on the “New Louvre.” The number inscribed on the mount corresponds to a listing in a printed catalogue of Baldus photographs from about 1863. An original copy of the catalogue is in the library of the Victoria and Albert Museum; it is reproduced in The Photographs of Édouard Baldus by Malcolm Daniel (The Metropolitan Museum of Art and The Canadian Centre for Architecture, 1994.)