Names: | Born: Eduard Baldus Other: E. Baldus Other: Edouard Baldus Other: Edouard Denis Baldus *** Historical error *** Other: Edouard-Denis Baldus *** Historical error ***
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| Dates: | 1813, 5 June - 1889, 22 December | Born: | Prussia, Grünebach | Died: | France, Arcueil-Cachan (a suburb of Paris) | Active: | France | Early French photographer noted for his architectural shots.
The dates for his birth and death given in reference works are often incorrect. He is also commonly referred to as "Edouard-Denis Baldus" but there is no trace of this name having been used during his lifetime. He was born "Eduard" and adopted the French spelling "Edouard" after moving to Paris.
[Thanks to Malcolm Daniel for this information.]
Stereographs project Business locations Paris, France [Edouard-Denis Baldus] "Photographer"; 5 & 25, Rue d'Assas; Issued "Avignon" series on SCMs; views uncommon, mostly scy. of south of France. Official photog. at Louvre, active 57-68. B. 13, D. 82. T.K. Treadwell & William C. Darrah (Compiled by), Wolfgang, Sell (Updated by), 11/28/2003, Photographers of the World (Non-USA), (National Stereoscopic Association) |
Credit: National Stereoscopic Association with corrections and additions by Alan Griffiths and others. |
NOTE: You are probably here because you have a stereograph to identify. Please email good quality copies of the front and back to alan@luminous-lint.com so we can create reference collections for all. |
Preparing biographies Baldus was among a group of photographers selected in 1851 by the French government's Historic Monuments Commission to document the nation's historic and contemporary architectural achievements. He used 'mammoth plates' - large glass negatives the same size as this print - to photograph the recently completed buildings which were additions to the Louvre Museum. The results show superb clarity of detail while conveying the imposing scale and grandeur of the buildings.
Throughout his career he continued to photograph the monumental architecture and engineering of both historical and contemporary France. Baldus’s images are both powerful records of French landmarks and expressions of national pride. He was one of the most prolific of French photographers during the 1850's and 1860's. This biography is courtesy and copyright of the Victoria & Albert Museum and is included here with permission. Date last updated: 11 Nov 2011.
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Exhibitions on this website |
| Premium content for those who want to understand photography | Visual indexes for this photographer are available for subscribers.There is so much more to explore when you subscribe. Subscriptions Edouard Baldus was born in 1820 in France. He was working as a painter in the 1840s when he discovered a love for photography. Like many others at the time Baldus was a pioneer in the early years of photography and much of his work documented the monuments and architecture of France. In 1851 he was commissioned by the Comite des Monuments Historiques to photograph monuments in Paris, Fontainebleau, Burgundy, the Dauphine, Normandy, Auvergne and Provence. During 1854-1855 Baldus created 1,500 photographs of a new wing of the Louvre in Paris and was commissioned by Baron James de Rothschild to photograph the railroad lines in France.
Baldus was a founding member of the Societe Heliographique and he was an early proponent of heliogravure, an early photomechanical process. Baldus used the calotype process through 1851 and in 1856 began using collodion wet-plate negatives and albumen prints. As well as his work with architecture and monuments, Baldus also photographed landscapes, sculpture, paintings, and the documentation of the Rhone floods. A major exhibition of his work took place at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York in 1994 and the book entitled, The Photographs of Edouard Baldus resulted from this show.
(Courtesy of the Lee Gallery, Sept 2007)
The Photographs of Édouard Baldus: Landscapes and Monuments of France https://cca.qc.ca ... Notes for an exhibition organized by CCA - the Canadian Center for Architecture in Montréal, Canada.
| Édouard Baldus (1813–1889) https://www.metmuseum.org ... Highly quality biography of Édouard Baldus. The Metropolitan Mueum of Art (NY) had a major exhibition of his photographs that was documented with a catalogue by Malcolm Daniel, The Photographs of Édouard Baldus. (New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1994)
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The following books are useful starting points to obtain brief biographies but they are not substitutes for the monographs on individual photographers. |
If there is an analysis of a single photograph or a useful self portrait I will highlight it here. |
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