O.G. Rejlander “father” of artistic photography

The Two ways of life, 1857, épreuve au charbon d’après épreuves papier
albuminé originale, 40,5×78 cm, Bradford, National Media Museum, Royal
Photograhpic Society Collection.

If we had to chose only one image to illustrate thebeginning of photography in the artistic world it would certainly bethis one.

Photography is used by numerous artists since its
apparition but is perceived as tool for inspiration more than as an
artistic realisation. Photography allows to represent an image very
similar to reality and can be used by the painter to create a
masterpiece.

Some artists find in photography a tool, like a
paintbrush, allowing to create an artistic work. The recognition of
this medium as a possible support for artistic expression will become
a struggle that continues today. Refused in art expositions,
photography is first presented to the public only as a result of a
technical progress.

With The two ways of life, O.G.
Rejlander proves through practice, that photography can be used
directly as a way of expressing the artist imagination. This work of
art proves that photography can be used to represent with great
precision the reality as well as the «imaginary».

Through this allegory, O.G. Rejlander depicts the
foils (frivolity, prostitution, gaming) and virtues (the man of
science, the devoted women, and the one reading) of society. It’s a
critic of idleness and a valorisation of expected behaviours in the
Victorian society.

This photographic « tableau »
questions the contemporary artists of O.G. Rejlander in many aspects
that we will mention below.

La
Grande Vague, Sète, photographie de Gustave Le Gray, 1857, Tirage sur
papier albuminé d’après deux négatifs sur verre au collodion, 357 x
419 mm, Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, Département des
Estampes et de la photographie.

The technique used in this photography is questioned
by O.G. Rejlanders contemporaries. The reaction of some of them
proves that they didn’t understood that in order to realise this
masterpiece, the photograph didn’t gathered and displayed all the
characters (among which we can find naked women) at the same time. To
create The two ways of life,
O.G. Rejlander used 30 photographies and spent more than 6 weeks
taking and assembling every cliché shaping this composition.

The photograph uses
to its extreme the technique of assembling slides. But already before
him, other artists like Gustave Le Gray, used similar, but less
ambitious, compositions.

In The
great wave, Sète,
Le Gray uses
this process in order to have an homogeneous exposition in the
photography. He takes two pictures, one with a posing time
sufficiently short to reproduce the clearest details of the sky and
the other with a longest one to capture the details of the darker see
and rocks. Le Gray will take an impotant amount of photographies
using this technique.

The choice of O.G. Rejlander of collage is justified
by several reasons. This technique solves the problem of sharpness in
different plans and allows a rich and complex composition as
presented in The two ways of life.

In order to consider the photographic medium as an
artistic one O.G. Rejlander doesn’t chose his subject randomly. The
two ways of life,
original for
the technic used, contains the theme of the Athens school,
of Raphaël. We find the two main characters holding hands and a
cohort of busy or idle individuals.

The choice can be explained in two ways. The
intention of O.G. Rejlander is to represent both decay and the
industry of his city. This two behaviours are in contradiction as the
groups of individuals represented. The choice can also be explained
by the desire of presenting the photographic medium as an artistic
one. Showing that it is possible to create as complex and evocative
work as the italian painters of the Renaissance,
O.G. Rejlander manages to convince about the artistic potential of
photography.

One of the photographies used for the realisation of “The two ways of life

The Two Ways of Life also
questions the use of nudity in photography. If nudity in paintings is
admitted, nudity in photography causes scandal. Realism and detail of
photography reflects exactly the reality of the bodies. This realism
and detail shocked a segment of the victorian society in that time.

The controversy is soothed when Queen Victoria buys
for Prince Albert a copy of The two ways of life.
But it appears again when Scottish Society refuses to exhibit the
work in an exposition in Edinburgh.

Thomas Sutton, photographic editor of The News
and responsible of the exposition, justifies this reject by the
necessity to preserve the dignity of the women portrayed. In fact,
O.G. Rejlander affirms that the models are actresses and actors, when
other argue that they are prostitutes. Nevertheless, the fact that
the artist lied or not about this isn’t taken into account in Thomas
Sutton argumentation. It is the nudity and the carnal representation
that justifies the rejection of this work.

Furthermore, the argument about the social background
of the models, is not raised when it comes to painting. As a matter
of fact, it happens that painters ask photographers for nude
photographies as models for their paintings. Here are two examples :

Nu
féminin assis sur un divan, la tête soutenue par un bras par Eugène
Durieu,  papier salé verni d’après négatif papier, 14 x 9,5 cm,
Bibliothèque nationale de France, Département des Estampes et de la
Photographie. 

Odalisque,1857, par Eugène Delacroix, huile sur panneau de bois, Collection privée.  

Oscar Gustave Rejlander

O.G.R. the Artist Introduces O.G.R. the Volunteer,1871, Albumen silver print
from glass negative, 10.2 x 11.4 cm, TheRoyal Photographic Society
Collection at the National Media Museum,
Bradford, United Kingdom.

Don’t worry, you’re not seeing double ! In this
double portrait, O.G. Rejlander, the artist, represents O.G.
Rejlander the army man voluntarily enlisted. This photography allows
to present the man and his technique : collage of albumen
negatives.

Probably born in 1813, in Sweden, O.G. Rejlander’s
father was a stonecutter officer in the swedish army. Besides these
very few precisions we know very little about his childhood.

Just as Charles Nègre, O.G. Rejlander start his
artist career through painting. He study first in Rome before
arriving to England where he learned the collodion process in
Nicollas Henneman workshop.

For some, he is interested in photography for its
precision and how it depicts clothes movements. For others, O.G.
Rejlander is influenced by Talbot (inventor of the photographic
technique through negative). But what we know with certainty is that
he discusses about photographic technique with Charles Lutwidgz
Dogson a passionate photographer, better known as Lewis Carrol, autor
of Alice in Wonderland.

O.G. Rejlander is a well-known portraitist and excels
in the practice of « business cards ». He receives
clients in his studio in Malden Road since 1862 and then installs
himself in Victoria Street, in 1869.

O.G Rejlander is considered today to be the father of
the artistic photography. Thanks to his collage work, he
produces allegories, using classic paintings and demonstrating
through his technique that photography can be used as a medium of
artistic expression. This approach is contested after he publishes
The two ways of life also
causing controversy for the nudes he chose to represent.

It is with an artistic aim that O.G. Rejlander
produces his photography named Homeless,
illustrating the poverty of homeless kids in the streets of London.
Thanks to this work, O.G. Rejlander is recognised as participating in
the beginning of social photography.

Charles Darwin will chose O.G. Rejlander to
illustrate  The
Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals
appeared
in 1872. Due to his technique and his vision, the photograph is able
to communicate strong emotions described by Darwin and will
contribute to his fame.

Despite the
important role played in the victorian society, O.G Rejlander dies in
misery in London in 1875. While he is a member of the Royal Society
of Photography, it’s the Edimbourgh Photography Society that will
collect the necessary funds for his funeral and will help his widow.

Sources for this week :

Charles Nègre a complete artist

To conclude our week on Charles Nègre lets review some of his works created at the beginning and the end of his life.

The work of Charles Nègre is known today thanks to the important memory
work done by his grand nephew, Joseph Nègre. In1992 he published La Rivierra de Charles Nègre, première
photographie de la Côte d’Azure (1852-1865)
. In this book,
Joseph Nègre presents the last photographies taken by his uncle once
he returned anonymously to his native region and became a teacher in
Nice. The following pictures show us that he never lost his genius.

Bateaux de pêche et les tours du Suquet,
(v.1863), épreuve sur papier salé d’après un négatif
papier, 15X22cm, Catalogue de la collection de Maria Theresa et André
Jammes.

This first photography shows us busy sailors and
reminds us Charles Nègre work on street photography. It has a
certain documentary character. The workers that we can see from afar,
are working naturally without worrying about the photographer. The
traditional working method shown here contrasts with the photographies
taken at the utterly modern Imperial Asylum of Vincennes.

If the documentary intention is evident, Charles
Nègre doesn’t forget to respect the composition rules that he
learned during his painter education. The rule of thirds is perfectly
respected.

Promenade des anglais, (v.1863), preuve sur papier
salé d’après un négatif papier, 15X22cm, Archive
départementales des Alpes Maritimes.

This photography of Charles Nègre surprises us by
the lack of characters. The geometric presentation that we could
observe with Le Stryge is once again very clear. The long
promenade guide our  look towards the hills and add curve to
this composition creating an interesting contrast.

Charles Nègre. Nu allongé vers 1848, épreuve sur
papier salé d’après négatif papier, 13X17 cm, Bibliothèque
Nationale de France.  

Among the work of his youth, Charles Nègre nude
pictures are in some ways remarkable. Here the model’s pose is very
academic. The picture was taken by the young artist as a study to
realise a painting. We can already perceive the chiaroscuro
that will be present in the rest of his work. The elegance of this
image and its composition are typical of nude photography in that
time and can be compared to the classical study of pictorial art.

Etude d’après nature : nu allongé sur un lit dans
l’atelier de l’artiste, (v.1850), épreuve sur papier salé d’après
négatif papier, 11X18cm, Musée d’Orsay.

Charles Nègre show us here an almost androgyne body.
The chest of the model vanishes with the pose. Evidently the
intention isn’t to enhance the body of this lady. The position seems
almost painful. The legs are hanging as a pendulum and the leaning
frame makes the image heave. This photography prefigures Charles
Nègre work on movement. The stripes in the floor contribute to the
general atmosphere, that is almost surreal with a strongly geometric
photography. The body as it is presented here does not match with canons of
beauty of the time.

Charles Nègre through his photographic techniques proves
to be very modern. Even if his influence on the apparition of social
photography can sometimes be questioned, his photographic technique
definitely contributed to it.

Charles Nègre and architectural photography

After studying the place occupied by Charles Nègre in the history of street photography, today we chose to study hiswork with architectural
photography.

As we said it on Monday, Charles Nègre isn’t chosento participate to the Mission Héliographiquein 1851. The goal of this mission is to document French architecture.
Nevertheless, Charles Nègre decides, in 1852, to do a coverage of the
south-east French architecture.

With this first
photographic sequence we can see the beginning of a geometric
presentation and of an abstraction that will become clearer in one of his
most-known photographies, Le Stryge.

Les rempart d’Arles (1852), épreuve sur papier
salé d’après un négatif papier, 23X33 cm, Collection
Privée.

This view of the Arles ramparts taken during his stay
in the Midi Region, doesn’t
have, at first sight, any documentary interest. However we can
observe that Charles Nègre technique is already undeniably striking.
The image details have kept all their precision in low lights.
Moreover, the massive position of the two towers, and the diagonal
created by the ramparts guide our look towards  the hinterland and
contribute to a sense of balance. Finally, the important contrast
between the burned part of the sky and the darkest areas of the wall
immersed in the shadows create a chiaroscuro
that is almost disturbing. If the final result of this photography is
mainly due to the extreme sensibility of the process used at the blue
light of the sky, this particularity is used by Charles Nègre in
order to give more strength to his image.

We can find the same
process in this interior view of the ramparts.

Arles, vue intérieur des remparts, côté
sud, (1852), épreuve sur papier salé d’après un négatif
papier, 24,5X33 cm, Collection Privée.

Here, Charles Nègre works with a chiaroscuro
between right and left of the image. We can guess at the background
the city of Arles. The photography gives a lot of details in its dark
parts. The representation that Charles Nègre gives us is the one of
a ruined, natural and non-living arenas. The necessity of the
documentary he realises in the region is evident as we see the
historic importance of the monuments photographed. The photographer
not only uses an irreproachable technique but he choses a framing and
depth of field that places the monument in the city and in History.
The clarity of the city on the back ground is in contrast with the
darker parts of foreground. We can feel in this photography a
willingness of geometric presentation : the circle drawn on the
dirt remind us the ramparts curve and the arcs that spine the damaged
structure.

Vue de la Cathédrale Notre Dame de Paris,
(1853), épreuve sur papier salé d’après un négatif papier,
24,5X33 cm, Collection privée.  

This photography shows us the Cathedral in the time
where the pediments of the facade were under construction according
to the Violet-le-Duc plans. It is a testimony of the building
renovation as we know it.

Charles Nègre choice of framing required a certain
preparation. He positioned himself at a higher point, certainly
acceding to a balcony in order to take this picture. The photography
doesn’t lack of depth and we can see on both sides, the city of Paris
expanding over the horizon. Once again, there is a strong contrast
between the sky, alway burned, and the darkness of the lower part of
the image. As if the cathedral were rising towards the light. Charles
Nègre controls both the framing and the contrast in order to
translate the monumental aspect of this cathedral. Yet, this frontal
image doesn’t show the depth of the monument and makes it seem as if
it was a stage setting.

Porche Sud de la Cathédrale de Chartres (1857),
Héliogravure, 53X71cm  MoMA.

Recognise for his photographic talents and his
capacity to catch the essence of the places he photographies, Charles
Nègre is asked to realise a sequence of photographies of the
Chartres Cathedral in 1857. The particularity of these photographies
is that they were realised according to the process of damasquinure
héliographique
, a technique that was invented by Charles Nègre himself.
This process allows to preserve a maximum of details in both highest and
lowest lights. The stairs going up to the cathedral guide our look
toward the pillars and the porch. Thanks to this process, Charles
Nègre manages to control the exposition allowing him to catch
perfectly every detail of the structure darker than the sky. He also
manages to preserve a quality of the high lights, allowing us to
distinguished very clearly the clouds. Here again, we found ourselves
in front of a chiaroscuro with
a clearer geometric presentation. 

Le Stryge, 1853, épreuve sur papier salé
à partir d’un négatif papier ciré sec
32,5X23 cm, Musée
d’Orsay.

Le Styrge, is the name given to this
photography by the collector André Jammes as an analogy to an
engraving of the paintor Charles Méryon. It is one of the most-known
masterpieces of Charles Nègre. This photography was taken on the
rooftop of Notre-Dame and shows his friend Henri Le Secq, framed
between two gargoyles. The character contemplate Paris dressed
casually and wearing a top hat. The mouldings of the building where
he stands are very detailed.

The geometrisatic presentation and abstraction work
is here obvious. The diagonal of the barricades, the horizontal wall
and the two sculptures enlivened by this clever production make of
this photography a masterpiece.

Charles Nègre à Notre-Dame de Paris, 1853,
épreuve sur papier salé à partir d’un négatif papier ciré
sec, Paris, Bibliothèque des arts décoratifs, Médiathèque de
l’architecture & du patrimoine.

This last photography taken by Le Secq, can bring a
parallel to the work done with the Stryge. Here, the atmosphere is
completely different. Charles Nègre is hidden in the shadows and is
only visible for his white collar. This gives a disturbing feeling
and remind us of Victor Hugo Notre-Dame de Paris published
twenty years before. If this photography is interesting by the
production, it does not capture the observer by its work of geometry,
but reminds us of Charles Nègre work on street photography.

Charles Nègre and street photography

Today lets discover Charles Nègre’s specialcontribution to street photography. As we mentioned it yesterday,Charles Nègre is one of the pioneers that participated in developing
photographical techniques through his artistic talents and his
technical ingenuity. Thanks to him, street photography was made possible
in the mid nineteenth century. We are going to present here some of his
masterpieces that
marked the beginning of photography.

The following picture is Charles Nègre best-known. It’s part of a
sequence achieved on the same subject, with the same constraints and
with the same interesting results.


image

Chimney sweep walking – Ramoneurs en marche
(v.1851) Charles Nègre, épreuve albuminée d’après un négatif sur
papier ciré 16X21 cm, Paris Musée Carnavalet.

Contrary to his contemporaries who stay in their
studios to realise exotics scenes, Charles Nègre doesn’t hesitate to
go to the street and take photographies of the parisian daily life.
Nevertheless, they are not yet photographies on the spot. The chimney
sweeps pose for this photography. Charles Nègre  make them pose in
order to realise a shooting according to the rule of thirds and to
the organisation that could have chosen any painter for the realisation
of a painting. Passionate whith the idea of movement, he asks the first
chimney sweep to position his right foot forward, slightly up and the
knee bend in order to mime walking. The two other protagonists seem
to be following him nonchalantly. The blurry background, the image
distortion beyond the focus point and the strong vignetting are the
consequences of a technique used by the artist to shorten at the most
the time of posing. Nevertheless, these technical uncertainties don’t
harm the general balance of this image.

image

Three chimney sweep resting at Quai Bourbon –
Trois ramoneurs au repos quai Bourbon (v.1851) Charles Nègre,
épreuve albuminée d’après un négatif sur papier ciré, 16,8X20
cm, Musée d’Orsay.

We find here the same three chimney sweep resting.
The background tells us that they haven’t moved and that they are
posing according to Charles Nègre indications. One of the characters
is turning his back on us and the other two are sited. They all are
in comfortable positions but this doesn’t prevent a slightly blur in
their faces. Even if Charles Nègre technique is remarkable for his time,
it still needs long posing times and the light of a sunny day.

image

The young garbage collector – Le petit
chiffonnier
(v.1851) Charles Nègre, épreuve albuminée
d’après un négatif sur papier ciré, 14X10 cm, Musée d’Orsay.

This is another photography taken in the same
sequence, Le petit chiffonnier. It
show us a profession of very poor income that will later disappear.
The diagonals formed by the walls of the near dock guide our look
toward the one of the young worker who is fixating us with his arms
crossed. The home, bathed in shade, closes the framework of this
photography in which the two thirds remain bathed in light. The only
reminder of this shadow full of details, is the look of the young
garbage collector half hidden by his hat.

Charles Nègre choses to show us here some of Paris
workers. They represent the poor base of a society during the
industrial revolution. With this photography he prefigures the
beginning of social photography even if his goal, more than making a
social critic, seems to be the realisation of a historic testimonial,
in the same spirit that the Mission Héliographique.

image

Paris, Scene of the Town Hall market – Paris,
Scène du Marché de l’Hôtel de Ville (v.1851), épreuve sur papier
salé, Musée D’Orsay.

Here, by the fuzzy of sellers and craftspeople,
Charles Nègre restores the activity’s movement of this square. We
can notice that some characters are better shaped, one of them is the
lady at the centre of the image. The whole scene is constructed
around her.

image

Italian street musicians – Musiciens de rue
italiens devant le 21 quai de Bourbon, vers 1854.

These musicians playing in front of Charles Nègre
studio are immortalised by this image full of live, as an organ
player was before them.

image

Organ player in front of 21 Quai de Bourbon –
Joueur d’orgue devant le 21 quai de Bourbon, vers 1853.

For these two photographies, Charles Nègre want to
illustrate parisian life. Le Joueur d’orgue seems to be
in movement, as if he were about to open the door. Central character
of a half-light image, this organ player is in action but disturbed
by his too big instrument.

image

Henri Le Secq and a little girl begging to the
organ player of Barbarie – Henri le Secq et une petite fille faisant
l’aumône au joueur d’orgue de Barbarie (v.1853), épreuve sur papier
salé, 16,5X21,5, Musée d’Orsay.

Our last photography for today is a smart
representation in which Charles Nègre makes his friend and
photographer Henri Le Secq participate. We see him accompany a young
girl of the streets asking for money to the organ player. This
representation is moving and evidences the wealth gasps in Paris
during the 19th century. It can be considered as a social
photography.

As a matter of fact, even if the intention of Charles
Nègre is only to document, he does bold choices for his time when
picking his subjects.

Charles Nègre (1820-1880)

It may seem anachronistic to present Charles Nègre as a social photographer, as social photography, investigation photography and communication photography on social problems will only be known at the end of the 19th century. Nevertheless, his approach of photography and the ameliorations that he will bring to the photographic
technique, make him without a doubt one of the founding fathers of this
movement.

Born in May, 9th 1820 in
the French city of Grasse, he takes drawing lessons at Aix-en-Provence in 1937.
He is accepted at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris in 1939, at the same
time that Louis Daguerre presented to the public his invention, inspired on
Niepce’s work. He works in Paul Delaroche studio and presents his work to
different parisian salons until 1953. He will also study under
the direction of Ingres and Drolling before opening his first studio at 21 Quai
Bourbon, on the Saint-Louis Island in Paris.

He starts to work with the new
medium that is photography in 1844 encouraged by his master Paul Delaroche. He
realizes daguerreotypes that he will use as a source of inspiration and a model
for the realization of his paintings. In 1848 he spends a few months in
Barbizon along with other artists and works in portraits and nudes. The
photography takes a more and more important place in his artistic creations.

Charles Nègre works with different
photographic techniques invented in his time and contributes to the
amelioration of Niepce technique of photogravure using a passage to a gold bath
(demasquinure heliographic), an innovation allowing to reunite the fineness and
precision of photography and the firmness and depth using engraving tints. He
will be rewarded during the Universal Exposition in Paris in 1867 for this
innovation.

Thanks to this technique and the
utilization of an objective that he manufactured, he manages to freeze movement
and becomes the pioneer of street photography. With this style he will create Ramoneurs
en marche.
Considered as one of the most important step of the evolution of
photography, this photography, as well as the series that will accompany it,
constitutes one of the first essays of motion-portrayal. Charles Nègre choses a
modern approach to represent the street in movement, when his contemporaries
simply ask models to pose in their studios. His street photography are natural
and spontaneous, characteristics that will become the aspects by definition of
street photography.

Charles Nègre will also contribute
to the growth of architectural photography and even if he is not chosen to be a
part of the Mission Héliographique,
he devotes a part of 1852 to the realization of more or less two hundred
photographies of monuments from the South West of France. Some of these
photographies of buildings from the city of Grasse are considered by his
successors to be one of the first examples of photographic art.

He receives afterword several orders
from the French State for photography of the Chartres cathedral (1954) and the
museography of the Louvre’s work of art (1958). Back to Paris, he starts
working with collodium photography, technique that he will use to realize one
of his most famous masterpieces, the Stryge (1853), in collaboration with the
photographer Le Secq, who will be his model in numerous occasions. In addition
to Le Secq, he also knows the other members of the group of experts of the Heliographic
Society,
including Gustave Le Gray.

In 1857/1859, he is commissioned by
Eugenia the Empress to photography the Imperial Aslyum of Vincennes. The Asylum
is the result of the social and paternalistic policy of Napoleon III, linked to
Haussmann urbanist work that attracted many workers to the capital. This order
was destined to give a positive and modern image of the Asylum and its founder.
It is considered to be a prototype of the communication photography. This order
will almost immediately be exposed by the French Society of Photography and
gathered in albums intended for notables.

In 1863 he returns living in the
South of France. Two years after he opens a workshop at 3 rue Chauvain, in Nice
where he is professor at the Imperial High School. He then produces a series of
photography of Saint-Raphaël in Menton. In 1865, he is hired by the Duke of
Luynes to produce the planks for the Journey of exploration to the Dead Sea, to
Petra and to the left bank of Jourdain. He finally comes back to Grasse in 1878
where he dies two years after on January 16, 1880.

Charles Nègre will only be
re-discovered in 1936 during big expositions organized in Paris and New York,
in Canada in 1936 and during the celebration in France of the Year of cultural
heritage in 1980. His grand-nephew, his greater promoter will publish in 1991 La
Riviera de Charles Nègre
, reproducing his clichés of the Côte d’Azur and
his hinterland.

References:

·        La photographie sociale, photo poche, actes sud,
Michel Christolhomme.

·        
Tout sur la photographie : Panorama des
mouvements et des chefs-d’œuvre, Flammarion, sous la direction de Juliet
Hacking. (p.54, p.75, p.288)

·        
André
Jammes, Charles Nègre photographe : 1820-1880, préface de Jean Adhémar,
Paris-Choisy-le-Roi, Imprimerie de France, 1963

·        
Françoise Heilbrun, Charles Nègre : photographe
1820-1880, catalogue de l’exposition, Arles, musée Réattu, 5 juillet-17 août
1980 ; Paris, musée du Luxembourg, 25 novembre 1980-19 janvier 1981, Ministère
de la Culture et de la Communication, Paris, 1980.

·        
Joseph Nègre, La Riviera de Charles Nègre,
préface de Louis Nucéra, Aix-en-Provence, Édisud, 1991.

·        
Ian
Jeffrey. The Photography Book, 2nd ed., London: Phaidon, 2000. (p. 343)

·        
Benjamin
Genocchio. “They Didn’t Forget the Camera”, New York Times, July 31,
2005.

·        
The
Kitchens of the Imperial Asylum, Metropolitan Museum of Art, March 31, 2011.

·        
Charles Nègre, Paris, scène de marché, notice
sur le site du musée d’Orsay. Archives

·        
National Gallery of Canada, consulté le 17 mai
2008. Archives

·        
Encyclopédie Universalis, article Adolphe
Goupil. Texte en ligne

·        
Henri Le Secq posant sur Notre-Dame de Paris. Le
choix d’avoir nommé cette photographie Le Stryge revient au collectionneur
André Jammes ; voir la notice de l’œuvre [archive] sur le site du musée
d’Orsay.

·        
Théâtre de la Photographie et de l’Image –
Photographies de Nice et de ses environs (1863-1866), consulté le 17 mai 2008.
[archive]

·        
Théâtre de la Photographie et de l’Image –
Notice biographique, consulté le 13 mai 2013. [archive]

·        
http://www.photo-arago.fr/C.aspx?VP3=CMS3&VF=GPPO26_3_VForm&ERIDS=2C6NU0OBY4CR:2C6NU0OBSIV4:2C6NU0OBM6ID:2C6NU0O0XDA3:2C6NU0ORSG9P

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http://www.art-directory.info/photography/charles-negre-1820/index.shtml

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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_N%C3%A8gre

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http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_N%C3%A8gre