Adolphe Braun
French, 1811–1877
Landscape, Switzerland
INV-1526
Adolphe Braun
French, 1811–1877c. 1860
Landscape, Switzerland
Adolphe Braun French, 1811–1877 →19th centuryalbumen silver printphotographic process
Date
c. 1860
Medium
Albumen print triptych
Dimensions
Left image: 23.7 × 30.1 cm (9 3/8 × 11 7/8 in.); Center image: 24.6 × 30 cm (9 11/16 × 11 13/16 in.); Right image: 24.5 × 29.8 cm (9 11/16 × 11 3/4 in.); Each support ,approx: 30.5 × 35.6 cm (12 × 14 in.)
Museum
Art Institute of Chicago
Location
Chicago, IL
Credit
Photography Associates Fund
Adolphe Braun pursued several paths to commercial success. A skilled draftsman, Braun nevertheless employed photography as a design aid in his wallpaper and fabric business in the 1850s, making photographic still-lifes of floral arrangements that were admired in his day. He then turned his attention to landscapes, and over the course of the 1860s produced large-scale commercial views as well as thousands of stereographs focusing on fashionable tourist destinations in Germany and Switzerland. (One observer claimed in 1866 that it was virtually impossible to take a step in Switzerland without stumbling upon a shop selling Braun's prints and stereo views.) It is unknown, however, whether this three-part triptych—including two figures repeated in each frame—was intended for tourist consumption. Braun in any case conveys here an Alpine pastorale, replete with a serpentine fence, grassy meadow, and snow-capped peaks.
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