Untitled from the portfolio Souvenirs du Camp de Chalons
Gustave Le Gray
French, 1820–1884
1857
A large albumen silver print made from a wet‑collodion glass negative in which Le Gray documents a mid‑19th‑century military maneuver while testing photography’s capacity for both record and composition.
A dusty road cuts diagonally into a vast, flat plain crowded with tiny ranks of soldiers and horses beneath a huge, pale sky, the scene’s scale underscored by two horsemen in the right foreground.
Dating to 1857, the image is an example of early documentary photography and Le Gray’s technical and aesthetic advances—showing how wet‑collodion negatives and albumen printing could capture contemporary events with unprecedented clarity and compositional ambition.
Medium
Albumen silver print from a wet-collodion glass negative
Dimensions
10 15/16 × 13 5/16" (27.9 × 33.8 cm)
Classification
Department
Credit
Gift of Paul F. Walter
Accession
325.1991.13
Palette
Exhibitions
