Sunday, November 27, 2016

Portraits by Félix Nadar, 19th century I

Félix Nadar
Hector Berlioz, composer
ca. 1860
Victoria & Albert Museum

Félix Nadar was the trade-name of Parisian studio photographer Gaspard-Félix Tournachon (1820-1910). His portraits of musicians and performers and idealists and professional beauties documented the more-or-less civilized face of 19th-century public life, just as the photographs of Matthew Brady in the United States were documenting the new barbarism of machine-made murder on an industrial scale.   


Félix Nadar
Gioacchino Rossini, composer
1856
Metropolitan Museum of Art

Félix Nadar
Jacques Offenbach, composer
1860s
Victoria & Albert Museum

Félix Nadar
Juliette Simon-Girard, soprano
1880s
Victoria & Albert Museum

Félix Nadar
Adelina Patti, soprano
1860s
Victoria & Albert Museum

Félix Nadar
Gustave Geffroy, writer
ca. 1880
New York Public Library

Félix Nadar
Edmond de Goncourt, writer
ca. 1885
New York Public Library

Félix Nadar
Eugène Pelletan, writer
ca. 1855-59
Metropolitan Museum of Art

Félix Nadar
Louis Blanc, socialist
1870s
New York Public Library

Félix Nadar
Gérault-Richard, socialist
1890s
New York Public Library

Félix Nadar
Mlle Montbazon, actress
1880s
Victoria & Albert Museum 

Félix Nadar
Sophie Croizette, actress
ca. 1890
Victoria & Albert Museum

Félix Nadar
Gabrielle Réjane, actress 
ca. 1880
Victoria & Albert Museum

Félix Nadar
Gabrielle Réjane, actress
ca. 1880
Victoria & Albert Museum