[Still Life]

Louis-Rémy Robert

1850 · Paper negative · Photographs

Severed, preserved, and propped on a table, this bovine head seems to hover before the photographer’s lens, though it was actually held in place by elaborate rigging. Louis-Rémy Robert trained as a painter and his carefully staged composition adapts earlier still life traditions for the camera. He began making photographs in 1848 and worked exclusively from paper negatives—a method then popular in France. A chemist for the Sèvres porcelain manufacture, he conducted experiments in the factory’s laboratory, testing new methods of coating his negatives to accentuate their clarity and contrast.

Artist

Louis-Rémy Robert

Date

1850

Medium

Paper negative

Department

Photographs

Credit line

Gilman Collection, Purchase, Anonymous Gifts, by exchange, 2005