Self-Portrait with Wife Ernestine in a Balloon Gondola

c. 1865, printed c. 1890

Nadar

Artist, French, 1820 - 1910

Paul Nadar

Printer, French, 1856 - 1939

A mustachioed man and a woman, both with light skin, crowd in the basket of a hot air balloon in this vertical, sepia-toned photograph. To our left, the man wears a tall top hat and a dark coat and cravat. With his body angled slightly to our right, he holds a pair of binoculars at his waist as he looks down and off to the side to our left. On our right, the woman wears a plaid patterned shawl that wraps around her body and seems to cover her head. A bow tied under her chin is a little wider than her face, and the wide ends of the ribbons reach far down her chest. She looks at us. The profile and torso of a person is cropped by the right edge of the photograph. Building on that, we eventually realize that the basket hangs a few feet above the floor in front of what must be a painted backdrop in a studio. The left edge is blurred and a sliver showing other people, or perhaps another exposure, is visible.

Media Options

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Artwork overview

  • Medium

    gelatin silver print

  • Credit Line

    Robert B. Menschel Fund

  • Dimensions

    image: 8.6 × 7.7 cm (3 3/8 × 3 1/16 in.)

  • Accession

    2000.21.1


Artwork history & notes

Provenance

The estate of Nadar (Félix Tournachon); by inheritance to Paul, then Anne Nadar; (Fraenkel Gallery, San Francisco, CA, by 1999); NGA purchase, 2000.

Associated Names

Exhibition History

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

1994

  • Hambourg, Maria Morris, et al. Nadar (exh. cat. The Metropolitan Museum of Art), New York, 1994: 29-30, 109-111.

Wikidata ID

Q64158358


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