Empress Eugènie
Photograph
Empress Eugènie
ca. 1875
Albumen silver print
Image: 9 x 6 cm
Mount: 10.4 x 6.2 cm
Museum accession
1981.3448.0011
Inscriptions recto (printed in negative): EMPRESS EUGENIE.
(printed): E. B. FAY, 704 BROADWAY, NEW YORK.
verso (applied label): Eugenie.
Into the Present, see! the Past has
reached,
And taken back its own, a faded
flower,
Its one-time lustre gone, its beauties
bleached,
An Empress long since shorn of
youth and power.
A thousand mem5ries [sic] cluster round her
pyre,
For one short hour return the
"sparkling years,"
The Tuilleries, like phoenix from the
fire,
Arise with all their wealth of laugh-
ter, tears.
A glitt'ring throng bend knee before
her throne,
Whose tottering none yet see, and
Europe waits,
In flattering silence, till the gods make
known
The stern decision of the brooding
Fates.
Again the pageant gathers, and the
hosts
Await her comingn [sic] decked in cos-
tumes brave,
But lo! the soldiers and the throngs
are ghosts
Who come to bear her escort to the
grave.
--William Wallace Whitelock in New
York Times.
(pencil): 7.106
(pencil): F
(printed): E. B. FAY, 704 BROADWAY, NEW YORK.
verso (applied label): Eugenie.
Into the Present, see! the Past has
reached,
And taken back its own, a faded
flower,
Its one-time lustre gone, its beauties
bleached,
An Empress long since shorn of
youth and power.
A thousand mem5ries [sic] cluster round her
pyre,
For one short hour return the
"sparkling years,"
The Tuilleries, like phoenix from the
fire,
Arise with all their wealth of laugh-
ter, tears.
A glitt'ring throng bend knee before
her throne,
Whose tottering none yet see, and
Europe waits,
In flattering silence, till the gods make
known
The stern decision of the brooding
Fates.
Again the pageant gathers, and the
hosts
Await her comingn [sic] decked in cos-
tumes brave,
But lo! the soldiers and the throngs
are ghosts
Who come to bear her escort to the
grave.
--William Wallace Whitelock in New
York Times.
(pencil): 7.106
(pencil): F
TextFirst introduced in the 1850s, tintype and ambrotype photographs enjoyed widespread popularity throughout the 1860s and ’70s. Both used the wet-plate collodion process, which involved a light sensitive liquid emulsion that was coated onto a support and quickly exposed to light before the solution dried. The primary difference between ambrotypes and tintypes were their supports: tintypes used a thin sheet of iron coated with a dark lacquer as their base, whereas ambrotypes used a sheet of glass backed with a black material. Despite the obvious difficulties involved with handling a wet emulsion within a constricted timeframe, wet collodion-based processes were attractive to photographers for their high light sensitivity, ability to record minute detail, and relative cheapness, a quality that led the tintype to be colloquially known as “the poor man’s daguerreotype” and made informal sittings such as these economically feasible.
Lisa Hostetler, Ph.D.
Curator in Charge, Department of Photography
Label for A History of Photography [Rotation 1]
May 9–September 28, 2014
Lisa Hostetler, Ph.D.
Curator in Charge, Department of Photography
Label for A History of Photography [Rotation 1]
May 9–September 28, 2014
