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We look across a street at the façade of a five-story building with a pitched roof in this square sepia-toned photograph. Vertical rectangular windows are spaced along the lowest two levels of the building, which appears to be constructed with large rectangular stones. There is a squat, arched window over a dark opening at the bottom center. The façade of the next two stories is smooth. Tall, narrow arched windows line the third story, and the fourth story has smaller rectangular windows with shutters. Columns frame the central bank of windows in the third and fourth stories. Dormers of the fifth level protrude from the low pitched roof, which nearly reaches the top edge of the photograph. Another house is visible through a narrow alleyway to our right, and another shorter house is cropped by the right edge. Some details of the three horse-drawn carriages lining the street in front of the houses are blurry. The image is surrounded by a wide black band with uneven edges.

William Henry Fox Talbot

The Boulevards of Paris, 1843

Not on View

Medium

salted paper print

Dimensions

image: 16.6 × 17.1 cm (6 9/16 × 6 3/4 in.)

sheet: 19 × 23.2 cm (7 1/2 × 9 1/8 in.)
mat: 35.6 × 45.7 cm (14 × 18 in.)

Credit Line

New Century Fund

Accession Number

1997.97.4

Artists / Makers

William Henry Fox Talbot (artist) British, 1800 - 1877

Image Use

This image is in the public domain.
Read our full Open Access policy for images .

Inscription

all by later hands: lower left verso in black ink: LA777; lower left verso in graphite: H31

Provenance

Mr. William Rubel, Santa Cruz, CA; purchased with donated funds by NGA, 1997.

Associated Names

Kraus, Jr., Inc., Hans P.
Rubel, William, Mr.

Exhibition History

1982: Masterworks of Photography from the Rubel Collection, The Crocker Art Museum, Sacramento [California], 1982: no. 97, pl. 8.

1989: The Art of Photography, Museum of Fine Arts [Houston]; Australian National Gallery, Canberra; Royal Academy of Arts, London, 1989: no. 16.

1997: Building a Collection, National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1997-1998, no. 87.

1999: Photographs from the Collection, National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1999.

2016: Intersections: Photographs and Videos from the National Gallery of Art and the Corcoran Gallery of Art, National Gallery of Art, Washington, 2016 - 2017, unnumbered catalogue.

Bibliography

1982: Masterworks of Photography from the Rubel Collection. Exh. cat. The Crocker Art Museum. Sacramento [California], 1982: no. 97, pl. 8.

1989: The Art of Photography.Exh. cat. Museum of Fine Arts. Houston [Texas], 1989: no. 16.