NADAR

Original albumen print photograph of Auguste Rodin, cabinet card format, mounted on stiff card. Nadar's signature in red in the lower margin. Advertisements in red on the verso. A small white area in the upper left margin, with a few imperfections from the glass plate in the same area, not affecting the portrait. Foxing to the margins.

Iconic portrait of the sculptor with close-cropped hair and pince-nez, staring fixedly into the lens.

Paris, Nadar studio, negative circa 1888, print circa 1900-1924. Cabinet-card photograph.

Albumen print mounted on the Nadar studio card. Maupassant is shown bust-length in left profile. The mount bears the printed name "P. Nadar" at the head and the studio signature printed in red in the lower margin. The verso gives the addresses 51 rue d'Anjou and 53 rue des Mathurins, together with Paul Nadar's distinctions at the 1900 Exposition Universelle: hors concours, member of the jury, Class XII.

Original photographic portrait of Alfred de Vigny seated in profile in a velvet armchair, mounted at an early date on stiff grey card. The poet sits with his arms folded, his gaze directed beyond the frame, holding a propelling pencil in his right hand. Early manuscript caption in ink along the lower margin of the mount, “Le C.te Alfred de Vigny”, with “NADAR” inscribed in capitals in the right margin. From a collector's album. Small area of superficial loss to the mount in the foreground beneath the sitter's hand.

The composition belongs to Nadar's earliest sittings with Vigny. The Musée d'Orsay preserves...

Original albumen photograph of Jules Verne in profile, in carte-de-visite format, mounted on the heavy card stock of the Nadar studio, 51 rue d'Anjou-Saint-Honoré, Paris. Early pen inscription on the verso identifying Jules Verne, printed advertising matter for the studio including the statement “Gold Medal, Universal Exhibition 1878”, and blue stamp “J. Kuhn, Paris”. Card with rounded corners; very slight wear to one corner, otherwise without significant defect.

The Nadar mount, whose advertising records the gold medal awarded at the 1878 Universal Exhibition, establishes a date after 1878...

Partly original edition, entirely revised and corrected.

Half red shagreen binding, spine with five raised bands framed with black fillets, gilt "N" at the foot, marbled paper boards, marbled endpapers and pastedowns, sprinkled edges, four bookseller's description labels pasted beneath the bookplate on the pastedown, contemporary binding.

A pleasant copy.

Provenance: from the library of Nadar with his celebrated engraved bookplate "Quand même !"