Public collection via the Cleveland Museum of Art
AT-00013006Saint-Honorat, Prés d'Arles
About the Artwork
Two years after his initial photographic trip to Provence, Baldus returned in 1853 to again document some of the region’s most imposing classical and medieval architectural monuments. His genius both as an architectural photographer and as a printer is easily witnessed in this extraordinary photograph taken in Arles. It depicts an ancient cemetery, the Alyscamps, in the foreground, with the unfinished Romanesque Church of Saint Honorat, dominated by its distinctive two-story bell tower, in the background. On this photographic campaign, this image was the rare occasion when Baldus succeeded in his desire to combine a picturesque aesthetic with an interest in the medieval past. Thirty-five years later, in the fall of 1888, Paul Gauguin and Vincent van Gogh made several paintings of the Alyscamps. Dudley P. Allen Fund 2009.5
Inscriptions
written in pencil on verso: "Charles Negre Arles St. Honorat.1852 26 (with two slashes through it and a circle around it) 30 (with a circle around it)"
Provenance
Charles Nègre; Collection André Jammes, Paris; Sotheby's Paris, Lot 78, November 15, 2008; Charles Isaacs, New York; Cleveland Museum of Art
Exhibition history
France at the Dawn of Photography. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (October 4, 2009-January 24, 2010).
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
- 1853
- Medium
- salt print from waxed paper negative
- Dimensions
- Image: 33.5 x 43.2 cm (13 3/16 x 17 in.); Paper: 33.5 x 43.2 cm (13 3/16 x 17 in.); Matted: 50.8 x 61 cm (20 x 24 in.)
- Type
- Photograph
- Classification
- Photograph
- Department
- Photography
- Credit line
- Dudley P. Allen Fund
- Accession no.
- 2009.5
More by Édouard Baldus in museum collections
Open-access museum record · AT-00013006
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