4011 - Baldus, Édouard

Baldus, Édouard Vues de Paris en Photographie. 1850s–1860s. 26 albumen prints, mounted on album leaves. Each approx. 20 x 27 cm or reverse (mounts 31.5 x 42.5 cm). Each bears the photographer’s “E. Baldus” stamp below the image on the mount. Bound in a contemporary full-leather folio album, the front cover features gilt stamping reading “VUES DE PARIS / EN PHOTOGRAPHIE” around the coat of arms of the City of Paris; the spine has raised bands and gilt tooling. A finely crafted album comprising 26 large-format albumen prints of Parisian architecture and monuments by Édouard Baldus. Produced in the 1850s and 1860s, at the height of Baldus’s career—when he was widely regarded as France’s leading architectural photographer—the album presents monumental views of Paris during its transformation under Napoleon III, captured with remarkable clarity and compositional precision. The photographs range from medieval and royal monuments to the architecture of the Second Empire, including Notre-Dame, the Arc de Triomphe, Place de la Concorde, and the Louvre, as well as structures that no longer exist, such as the Palais de l’Industrie and the old Hôtel de Ville. The gilt title and the city’s coat of arms identify the volume as a prestigious photographic record of the capital; a very similar album with the same title is preserved at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. – Binding with a rubbed spine and edges and bumped corners; endpapers and a few album leaves with scattered light foxing. A few leaves are slightly loose or have small marginal tears; some interleaving sheets have small tears, creases, and holes. A few prints have isolated pale foxing spots, mostly in sky areas, slight fading, occasional minor scuffs, and very slight silver mirroring in dark areas; several prints feature exceptionally rich chocolate-brown tones and an excellent tonal range. Otherwise, the prints are in very good overall condition.