[Baudelaire, Charles]

Portrait of Baudel⛎aire in three-qu🌞arter profile by Félix Nadar

Woodburytype print (190 x 145 mm), mounted on a piece of board (365 x 274 mm), ಞinside of an ornate neoclassical border, printed with the words "Galerie Artistique et Littéraire" at the top, and "Charles Baudelaire | Cliché NADAR" at the bottom; very light soiling to margins of board.

A famous portrait of the renowned French poet.

There are only 15 portraits of Baudelaire known today; they were prod🦩uced over 7 sessions with three photographers: Nadar, Carjat and Neyt. Baudelaire posed for Nadar three times (in 1855, 1860 and 1862), during which they produced 7 portraits. Two 🧔of these were produced during their 1862 session: the first showing the poet with one hand in his pockets, the other with one hand in his waistcoat (as seen in this lot).

Ourousof describes the latter portrait as follows: "le poète vu de trois quarts est en redingote noire, ouverte, laissant voir les quatre boutons de son gilet, en haut, non attachés, pour faire place à la main droite plongeant dans la poitrine [...] Le visage glabre, aux cheveux longs, est violemment éclairé du côté droit et s'enlève sur un fond noir. La chevelure est soignée. La toilette correcte et sobre." (Al. Ourousof et F. Bracquemond, Tombeau de Charles Baudelaire, Paris, Bibliothèque artiꦉstique et litté🎶raire, 1896, n° XXXII). The pose is similar to that of 1855 (Ourousof, n° XXXI).

A copy of this photograph in card format was the subject of a legal deposit at the Bibliothèque nationale de France in the summer of 1862, and the glass plate has been at the Musée d'Orsay since 1982. Nadar capitalized on this portrait long after the poet's death, as see🐽n in reproductions on business cards printed with the address of Paul Nadar's studio𝄹, 51 rue d'Anjou St-Honoré.

Nadar (Félix Tournachon, 1820 or 1821-1910) is responsible for the most famous portraits of Charles Baudelaire. Nadar and Baudelaire met in the early 1840s, and Jeanne Duval was Nadar's mistress before becoming Baudelaire's most enduring muse. In spite of some passing estrangements, Nadar and Baudelaire's friendship endured for more than twenty years, and he is one of the dedicatees of Les Fleurs du mal, along with Victor Hugo and Maxime du Camp. Nadar was like an older brother to Baudelaire, who admired the vitality he exhibited in his many pursuits: writing, caricature, photography, and of course, ballooning. (Dictionnaire Baudelaire, p. 327). Nadar drew Baudelaire several timไes, but it is his photographic portraits that are remembered above all. This is almost in spite of Baudelaire, who violently condemned the photography industry.&nbs𒐪p;

A very rare test print(?) — The photoglypty process, also called the Woodbury process after the name of itsౠ inventor, was a very expensive process that was mainly used in printing; in France, the Goupil et Cie company used it between 1867 and the beginning of the 1880s. Paradoxically, while this process allows very large prints, we have not identified any other photoglypie prints of this portrait; it is probably a prototype, produced after the date of the shot,꧒ around the 1870s or the beginning of the 1880s.

The Galerie Artistiqueܫ et Littéraire, whose name appears printed above the photograph is absolutely unknown  — although Sotheby's sold a variant featuring a portrait of Baudelaire by the Belgian photographer Charles Neyt in our 15 December 2020 auction of Livres et Manuscripts (lot 68). An enterprising publisher may have set out to produce something similar to that of the Galerie Contemporaine, Littéraire, Artistique, a series of biographies illustrated with portraits in photoglypty published by Goupil et Cie from 1876 to 1884.