Édouard Baldus 1855 Album cover Itineraires et Vues du Chemin de fer du nord - Visite de sa Majeste la Reine Victoria et de son Altesse Royale le Prince Albert 18-27 Aout 1855
Full red leather photograph album with elaborate gilt tooling. Contains fifty photographs (RCINs 2584456-2584508) with painted title page and two maps, views and railways in northern France.
The album was presented to Queen Victoria and Prince Albert as a memento of their state visit to France from the 18th to 27th of August, 1855. The album shows landmarks on the route of the Chemin de Fer du Nord, by which they travelled between Boulogne and Paris. The Queen's description of the journey shows it was not always comfortable as 'the heat and dust, in the train, were very great - really dreadful, and I never felt hotter.' Baldus completed the photography in three days. Some of his prints, including this one of the Gare du Paris, seem to reflect national pride in a new, industrial France, rising out of the ashes of the Revolution of 1848.
