Unknown (20th), Paris, Champs-Élysées, Prachtstraße,... Lot 493

Unknown (20th), Paris, Champs-Élysées, Prachtstraße, around 1880, albumen paper print Unknown (20th century): Paris: Die Avenue des Champs-Élysées, Prachtstraße, c. 1880, albumen paper print Technique: albumen paper print, mounted on Cardboard Inscription: Inscribed in the lower right of the photograph: "220 Paris L'Avenue des Champs-Elysées. / X. Phot.". Date: c. 1880 Description: The photograph impresses with the considerable activity with horse-drawn vehicles on the tree-lined promenade (Grand Cours). Original photograph with high sharpness of detail. An early testimony of travel photography. Around the middle of the 19th century, more and more tourists from bourgeois circles travelled in Europe. At that time, photographs could only be taken with a great deal of time and expensive, unwieldy equipment. This made many tourists all the more grateful for the work of the professional photographer's studios on site to bring back a souvenir from afar for those who stayed at home or to collect as souvenirs. The photographers photographed the most famous sights of their hometowns and went on trips themselves to photograph the most popular destinations of their clients and offer them as albumen prints. Ancient art treasures were also photographed and offered to travellers. The high-quality photographs of sculptures and frescoes continued to make an important contribution to documenting art treasures and making them accessible to scholars from all over Europe, who previously had to rely on tracings or engravings if they could not view the original for themselves. Keywords: 19th century, Historicism, Cities, France, Size: Cardboard: 26,5 cm x 31,9 cm (10,4 x 12,6 in), Depiction: 21,0 cm x 27,3 cm (8,3 x 10,7 in)