Grand Trianon
Eugène Atget
French, 1857–1927
1923-24
Eugène Atget's matte albumen silver print photograph quietly documents the Grand Trianon's classical balustrades and urns, aiming to record the designed landscape with the exactness of a visual archive.
A low, diagonal vantage leads your eye along a weathered stone wall to a solitary ornamental urn, while a calm pool and a hush of trees stretch into the pale sky, giving the scene a still, slightly melancholy air.
Atget's calm, methodical images helped define modern documentary photography by treating ordinary architectural detail as both evidence and poetic subject, preserving cityscapes threatened by change.
Medium
Matte albumen silver print
Dimensions
Approx. 7 × 8 7/8" (17.8 × 22.5 cm)
Classification
Department
Credit
Abbott-Levy Collection. Acquired through the generosity of Shirley C. Burden, and Family of Man Fund
Accession
1.1969.2792
Palette
Art Terms
Exhibitions
