La Rochelle
Eugène Atget
French, 1857–1927
1896?
A gelatin silver printing-out-paper photograph of a moored sailing boat before the medieval towers of La Rochelle, made by Eugène Atget as a careful visual record of French towns and harbor life.
Your eye is caught by the dark hull and rigging in the foreground that slice vertically through the frame against the luminous, textured stone towers and their soft reflections, giving the scene a hushed, timeless atmosphere.
Atget’s understated documentary approach turned archival photography into a modern art form, preserving vanishing urban landscapes and shaping how twentieth-century photographers and artists thought about the city.
Medium
Gelatin silver printing-out-paper print
Dimensions
Approx. 6 1/2 × 8 1/2" (16.5 × 21.6 cm)
Classification
Department
Credit
Abbott-Levy Collection. Acquired through the generosity of Shirley C. Burden, and Family of Man Fund
Accession
1.1969.1299
Palette
Art Terms
Exhibitions
