Description

The Property of a Gentleman Salt prints from albumen on glass negatives, on original card mounts, each with the circular blindstamp of Edouard Mauche et Cie, Rue du Corso 174, Rome, The Forum and the Temple of Saturn 22.4 x 28.8cm (8 3/4 x 11 1/4in) The Pantheon 22 x 28.8cm (8 5/8 x 11 1/4in) The Temple of Vesta from the Ponte Rotto 19.8 x 25.8cm (7 3/4 x 10in) Saint Peter's Basilica 22 x 28.8cm (8 5/8 x 11 1/4in) The Tiber and Castel Sant'Angelo 20.4 x 28.7cm (8 x 11 1/4in) The Arch of Titus 16.5 x 21.9cm (6 1/2 x 8 1/2in) The Colosseum 15.8 x 21.8cm (6 1/4 x 8 1/2in) The Forum of Trajan 28.6 x 22cm (11 1/4 x 8 5/8in) Literature: Roma 1850. Il Circolo dei Pittori Fotografi del Caffè Greco, Rome and Paris, 2003 illustrates four of the photographs Literature: Roma 1850. Il Circolo dei Pittori Fotografi del Caffè Greco, Rome and Paris, 2003 illustrates four of the photographs. Constant was a member of the circle of painter-photographers who met at the Caffè Greco from about 1847 until the mid-1850s. While most of his fellow photographers in Rome worked with paper negatives he was one of the first to use albumen on glass negatives, a process he had learned from its inventor Niépce de Saint-Victor in 1848. His photographs, printed as salt prints, are characterised by luminosity, fine detail and a wide range of tones; they were exhibited as early as 1852 at the Society of Arts in London. Examples are recorded with either his own blindstamps or those of his dealer Mauche; albums with Mauche's stamps are in the collections of the Metropolitan Museum and the Archivo Fotografico Communale, Rome.