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Gustave LE GRAY & Alexandre DUMAS

Photographie d'Alexandre Dumas

Paris s.d. (circa 1860), 6,4x10,2cm, une photographie.

Photographic portrait of Alexandre Dumas
 

Original photograph on albumin paper in a visiting card format, laid down on card, by Gustave Le Gray and showing Alexandre Dumas with a beard in white trousers. Deep blacks and good contrast.
Photo mounted on card. Very good condition. The Legray studio having been bought by the Alophe studio, the photo is no doubt a little later. In any case, while the first photo shows the feet of the writer on the ground, he is here enclosed in a medallion that cuts off his feet. Therefore we would date the photo to around 1870.
On the back, the name of the author in manuscript and a stamp: Ancienne maison Le gray et C^ie, Alophe Succr. 35 Boulevart des Capucines.
A very handsome standing portrait of the writer.
Dumas wrote of this portrait, which he reproduced on the front page of his review Monte-Cristo on the 5 January 1860: “Of the qualities of this portrait, I would like to dwell only on the first, the most essential: the resemblance. It is up to you, dear readers, to determine whether photography has ever done finer. I must also say to you that I did not pick the photographer at random, and that in M. Le Gray, I have found an artist of the first water. Go and seek him out, excellent judges of photography told me, and you will be pleased. I went to see him and I was amazed. I understood, and this after having had a hundred different photographs taken by a hundred different photographers, though you may not suspect it yet, dear readers, I understood that as a photographer, Le Gray is both an artist and inspired.”

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