Public collection via the Cleveland Museum of Art
AT-00000374Mosaique: The Imperial Court of Napoleon III
About the Artwork
The mosaic cards offered visual catalogues of the luminaries of a profession or social group in a single photograph. Here the emperor, his wife, and son top a pyramid of statesmen, soldiers, artists, writers, and others affiliated with the imperial court. This image was produced by cutting hundreds of figures photographed by Disdéri away from their backgrounds, mounting the likenesses on a single sheet, photographing that collage, and printing it on 6 x 9 cm cards.
Inscriptions
Imprinted in black type on recto of mount: “Disdéri Phot/MOSAIQUE./Breveté s g.d.g”; Written in pencil on verso of mount: “100”; Imprinted in black type on verso of mount: “Disdéri/Photographe de S.M. L’Empereur/8, Boulevart des Italiens/Paris”
Provenance
(Philippe Lengendre, Paris, France) March 4, 2019: The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH
Exhibition history
France in the Time of Manet and Morisot. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (May 10-August 23, 2026).
Data retrieved from the Cleveland Museum of Art on October 7, 2026. The museum may have updated its record since.
Quick Overview
- Artist
- André Adolphe-Eugène Disdéri (French, 1819–1889)
- Date
- c. 1866
- Medium
- albumen print, montage carte-de-visite
- Dimensions
- Image: 9.1 x 5.6 cm (3 9/16 x 2 3/16 in.); Paper: 9.1 x 5.6 cm (3 9/16 x 2 3/16 in.); Mounted: 10.5 x 6.1 cm (4 1/8 x 2 3/8 in.)
- Type
- Photograph
- Classification
- Photograph
- Department
- Photography
- Credit line
- Gift of Barbara Tannenbaum and Mark Soppeland
- Accession no.
- 2019.69
More by André Adolphe-Eugène Disdéri in museum collections
Open-access museum record · AT-00000374
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