La Tour Eiffel. – Détail du Campanile.

Neurdein Frères|Louis-Antonin Neurdein|Etienne Neurdein

1889 · Albumen silver print · Photographs

The brothers Étienne and Louis-Antonin Neurdein operated a successful commercial photography studio in Paris for half a century. In 1899 they won the gold medal for photography at the Exposition Universelle—for which the Eiffel Tower remains the enduring symbol. The world’s fair was scheduled to celebrate the centennial of the storming of the Bastille and the start of the French Revolution. City commissioners selected Gustave Eiffel’s dramatic iron tower over the other design-contest entries, including one for a three-hundred-meter-high guillotine. During the six-month fair, some thirty million visitors attended: many climbed up the tower to look down upon the city from the second floor platform—as far as one could ascend at the time.

Artist

Neurdein Frères|Louis-Antonin Neurdein|Etienne Neurdein

Date

1889

Medium

Albumen silver print

Department

Photographs

Credit line

Gift of Stéphane Samuel and Robert Melvin Rubin, 2013