Matra Reinhard

About the Artwork

These striking portraits of working-class girls were made as ethnographic or artistic studies of types. Potteau’s photograph was part of an anthropological series the naturalist produced for the National Museum of Natural History in Paris. Employing the standard commercial portrait studio conventions of the time, he carefully posed his subject in an even light. However, instead of a painted backdrop, Potteau used a plain background as if shooting a scientific specimen. On the mount he recorded her biographical data: her name, that she was born in Paris to parents from Bohemia five years ago, and that she stands three and a half feet tall.

Inscriptions

written in black ink on recto: "Matra Reinhard (5 ans) Bohémienne neé à Paris, fille de Joseph et de Madeleine Reinhard. Taille/ mètie 7 centimètres/ Phot. en/ 1868"; on verso in pencil: "16 [circled] Collection TEXBRAUN- Paris-/ LOUIS ROUSSEAU."

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). Cheating Death: Portrait Photography’s First Half Century. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (October 22, 2016-February 5, 2017).

Data retrieved from the Cleveland Museum of Art on October 8, 2026. The museum may have updated its record since.

Quick Overview

Artist: Jacques-Philippe Potteau (French, 1807–1876)
Date: 1868
Medium: albumen print from wet collodion negative
Dimensions: Image: 17.2 x 12.3 cm (6 3/4 x 4 13/16 in.); Mounted: 37.5 x 28.2 cm (14 3/4 x 11 1/8 in.); Matted: 45.7 x 35.6 cm (18 x 14 in.)
Type: Photograph
Classification: Photograph
Department: Photography
Credit line: John L. Severance Fund
Accession no.: 1999.114

Open-access museum record · AT-00012969