Auguste VACQUERIE

Salt print from a calotype, mounted on cardboard.
Handwritten annotation by poet Henry Dérieux on verso: "Hugo et Vacquerie, photographie donnée par Larguier avec son livre un dimanche de l'été 1914" (Hugo and Vacquerie, photograph given by Larguier with his book on a Sunday in the summer of 1914).
Portraits of Victor Hugo and Auguste Vacquerie in front of the window of Marine Terrace, the house inhabited by the Hugo family during their exile in Jersey between 1852 and 1855.
The salted paper calotype process, recently introduced by William Henry Fox Talbot, produced images with a matt appearance and naturally warm tones, albeit with little contrast.
This is an exceptional original photographic print, one of a series of photographs taken by Auguste Vacquerie or Charles Hugo in front of the Marine Terrace window, from which the famous portrait of Victor Hugo holding his hand to his temple is taken.
The few known portraits in this series, which are held by the Musée d'Orsay and the Maison Victor Hugo, are real settings of the exiled poet, with a clearly political aim.
“These portraits share a common goal: to transform the exiled Victor Hugo into a legendary figure. They share the modernity of their vision and the absence of decorative or clothing devices. Only his pose and the skillful use of light provide the stylization needed to create a typical image. These are not memoirs of exile that are reported here, but moments where the poet is captured in his essence, in accordance with iconographic tradition. However, while the poses awaken collective memories relating to the figure of the inspired poet and thinker, the use of photography renews the genre by providing a direct tone. The image, breaking with all academicism, proves more effective. Thereafter, the writer's portraits were less intense and less compelling than during his years in exile.” (cf. Stéphanie CABANNE, « Victor Hugo artisan de sa légende », Histoire par l'image)
More intimate, this portrait of the two brothers in poverty, after the tragic drowning of Léopoldine Hugo and her husband Charles Vacquerie, seems to be addressed less to eternity than to the collusion of the photographer, Charles Hugo or Auguste Vacquerie himself. There is a similar photograph under which Vacquerie added this personal note: “Auguste Vacquerie is sad about his accomplice. / A.V.”, taken from a personal album by Vacquerie given to Augustine Allix and now kept at the Maison Victor Hugo.
Our photograph, which has never been on the market, comes from the collection of Léo Larguier, author of Victor Hugo in twenty images, who offered it in the summer of 1914 to the poet Henry Dérieux, as indicated by the handwritten dedication on the back of the photograph. It then joined the collection of his son, the painter Roger Dérieux.
One of the very rare photographic portraits of Victor Hugo as a young exile in Jersey, still in private hands, which contributed to the imagery of the leader of the Romantics.