Mikhail Aleksandrovitch BAKOUNINE

Photographic portrait of Mikhail Bakunin Extremely rare original photograph on albumen paper of Mikhail Bakunin, in carte-de-visite format, mounted on a board from the studio of Georges-Mathurin Legé in Paris, successor to Etienne Carjat.
Pencil annotation on the photo and on the back of the board.
We have not found any other copy of this photograph in international public collections.

Photographic portrait of Mikhaïl Bakunine
An extremely rare original photograph on albumin paper showing Mikhail Bakunin, in visiting card format, laid down on card from the studio of Nadar. Bakunin, leaning on the back of a chair, with cane in hand, gives the camera an intense, focused look.
Pencil note to verso.
This photograph, taken between 1862 and 1864, was probably sold after 1871, as witnessed by the photographer's address on the back of the mount: “51 rue d'Anjou St Honoré – Anciennement boulevart [sic] des Capucines”.
This photograph, one of the rare ones known of Bakunin, who enjoyed only brief stays in France, is not included in the catalog of the exhibition devoted to the Nadar family by the National Library of France in 2018 (Les Nadar, une légende photographique). It does nonetheless appear, in a much smaller format (5.8 x 8.5 cm), and with a slightly larger frame in the reference album of the Nadar Studios as number 0578 in the section of “Old visits. Contemporaries.”
A rare and handsome portrait of the famous theoretician of Anarchism, taken by Félix Nadar, friend of revolutionaries and bohemians.