Public collection via the Cleveland Museum of Art
AT-00012917Amiens
About the Artwork
This rare, majestic, and sweeping view of the cathedral of Amiens, France, is an outstanding example of Baldus’s genius for photographing architecture. Placing his large view camera at an elevated vantage point, he recorded the dominating and central position of the church, which was undergoing restoration, as it towered above the surrounding village; open landscape is captured in the distance. In this ambitious composition, he carefully rendered the scene’s textural detail, spatial complexity, and subtlety of light. Compare this distant view with the close-up detail of a stone sculpture in LeSecq’s photograph of the same building (CMA 1996.253).
Inscriptions
Written in negative: "E. Baldus. N:32. Amiens"; in black ink: "E. Baldus [signed]; in pencil: "CI"
Exhibition history
Year in Review for 1986. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (February 4-March 15, 1987). Drawn with Light: Pioneering French Photography from the Cleveland Museum of Art. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (February 26-June 16, 2005).
Data retrieved from the Cleveland Museum of Art on October 8, 2026. The museum may have updated its record since.
Quick Overview
- Artist
- Édouard Baldus (French, 1813–1889)
- Date
- 1855
- Medium
- albumen print from wet collodion negative
- Dimensions
- Matted: 50.8 x 61 cm (20 x 24 in.)
- Type
- Photograph
- Classification
- Photograph
- Department
- Photography
- Credit line
- Andrew R. and Martha Holden Jennings Fund
- Accession no.
- 1986.15
More by Édouard Baldus in museum collections
Open-access museum record · AT-00012917
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