About This Image

Prints mounted by the four corners only on a thin paper album page. On the reverse of the print of the group portrait (visible when the edge is raised), "(collodion humide) (à Versailles)" written in pencil probably by the photographer. There is a later albumen landscape print on the verso.

Provenance: album compiled by Alfred Coulon (1826-1898), member of the Société Française de Photographie from 1858.

Descended from a noble Spanish banking family and born in Paris, Count Olympio-Clémente Aguado de las Marismas (February 3,1827-october 25, 1894) began to photograph about 1849, reportedly learning photography from Gustave Le Gray.

As one of the early practitioners who "welcome[d] the new art and who devoted to it not a little energy and money, but their fortunes and their lifetimes,"

Aguado made both daguerreotypes and calotypes and may even have exhibited his paper negatives. Eventually turning to collodion-on-glass negatives, he made enlargements by projection, which was highly unusual in the 1850s.

He pioneered a number of photographic processes, including carte de visite photographs and photographic enlargement processes. He helped found the Société Heliographique in 1851. He was also a founding member of the influential Société Française de Photographie in 1854. Like Le Gray, Aguado taught photography to a number of his friends, among them Camille Silvy.

Aguado was made a Chevalier de la Légion d'honneur in 1867.

He died in Compeigne in 1894.

As a testament to his technical skills, Aguado once successfully printed 20,000 francs in counterfeit money for a friend's single night of high living. In addition to making nature studies and landscapes, he also indulged in theatrical tableaux vivants involving friends and family.

His photographs are in the New York Metropolitan Museum of Art, the New York Museum of Modern Art, the French Bilbiotheque Nationale, the Musee d'Orsay, the Saint Louis Museum of Art, the Getty Museum, the Strasbourg Museum of Art and the Société Française de Photographie, among others.

Most U.S. domestic Fed Ex ground shipping (Media Mail for books) is free of charge except for larger and heavier items, or unless the buyer wants express shipping (email us your requests for the latter). International shipping and insurance costs will be added to the price and must be paid for by the buyer. Pennsylvania buyers must pay appropriate local sales tax. International clients are responsible for their local customs duties and taxes, which will be charged by Fed Ex, which will contact the client prior to delivery.