[Standing Male Nude]

Charles Alphonse Marlé

ca. 1855 · Salted paper print from paper negative · Photographs

Marlé’s photograph was probably intended as an aid for painters and sculptors. The jury-rigged arrangement of podium, books, and potted tree, as well as the painting held in the background by a studio assistant, may strike the modern viewer as an incongruous contrast to the heroic gesture of the model. Marlé and those who bought his photograph, however, would have been absorbed by the grand academic pose and likely would have thought the awkward accoutrements of little consequence.

Artist

Charles Alphonse Marlé

Date

ca. 1855

Medium

Salted paper print from paper negative

Department

Photographs

Credit line

Purchase, Ezra Mack Gift and The Horace W. Goldsmith Foundation Gift through Joyce and Robert Menschel, 1991