Still Life

FANTAISIES

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HENRI LE SECQ

Genre Still life

Date 1856

Location Paris, France

Format Waxed-paper negative

“Born in Paris, Henri Le Secq (1818-82) studied painting under Paul Delaroche and was taught photography by Gustave Le Gray. Le Secq favoured the waxed-paper negative process, which he continued to use even when most of his contemporaries had begun to use glass negatives.

In 1851 he became a founding member of the Société Héliographique, the world’s first photographic society. He was also a member of the Missions Héliographiques, a group of photographers who were commissioned by the French government to record the nation’s architectural heritage. Le Secq took hundreds of photographs of ancient monuments, buildings and churches, earning recognition as one of France’s finest architectural photographers. One critic remarked that he thought that is was more informative to look at Le Secq’s photographs than to study the actual buildings.

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‘Le Secq’s camera captured details not easily visible to the causal observer; his work is an outstanding example of the realist trend in 19th – century photography.’

lineature.com

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In 1856, in a radical departure from his usual subject matter, Le Secq made a series of still-life studies, photographing various arrangements of objects, fruits and vegetables. This new activity was possibly informed by his early training as an artist in Delaroche’s studio. Le Secq made the photograph shown here as the frontispiece for a portfolio of his still lifes. While clearly a still life, it may also be interpreted as a form of portraiture ≠ part self-portrait and part portrait of his beloved France. A bottle of French wine labeled Fantaisies (‘Fantasies’) and two filled wineglasses stand invitingly beside a camera lents. Yet fir the last two decades of his life, Le Secq returned to painting, exhibiting regularly at the Salon in Paris.”(CH)

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