Public data from the Cleveland Museum of Art. Learn more
Artist (or Assistant) with Pipe
About the Artwork
Frank Chauvassaignes' portrait is an outstanding example of compositional and technical achievement in early French photography. A handsome young painter, outfitted for work in the studio in a rumpled smock, appears to be caught in a moment of introspection, pipe in hand. The camera's lowered position gives the sitter a dignified air. In this formally balanced portrait, the photographer captured not only the sitter's physical likeness, but also his state of mind. Chauvassaignes, a photographer with a trained and sophisticated eye, lived in Clermont-Ferrand, a city in central France, and was a member of the Société française de photographie. To date, little information has been found about this artist and his small, though remarkable, body of known images
Inscriptions
written in pencil on recto: "N1119J"
Exhibition history
19th-Century French Portrait Photography from the Cleveland Museum of Art. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (May 27-August 9, 2000). France at the Dawn of Photography. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (October 4, 2009-January 24, 2010).
Quick Overview
- Artist
- Frank Chauvassaignes (French)
- Date
- 1853–1857
- Medium
- salt print from wet collodion negative
- Dimensions
- Image: 21 x 15.7 cm (8 1/4 x 6 3/16 in.); Mounted: 30.5 x 23.5 cm (12 x 9 1/4 in.); Matted: 50.8 x 40.6 cm (20 x 16 in.)
- Type
- Photograph
- Classification
- Photograph
- Department
- Photography
- Credit line
- John L. Severance Fund
- Accession no.
- 1998.174
More by Frank Chauvassaignes in museum collections
Data retrieved from the Cleveland Museum of Art on October 8, 2026. The museum may have updated its record since.
Open-access museum record · AT-00012948
Powered by Art Trackers