Pierre Petit

Medallion photographic portrait of Victor Hugo
Paris [1861] | 6,2x10,2cm | photograph mounted on card
Original contemporary albumen print mounted on card.
Notes on the back.
The very first photograph of Victor Hugo with a beard.
It was in January 1861, after a terrible sore throat, that the writer decided to grow a beard: «I am growing a beard to see if it will protect me against throat-ache.» There are several references to the famous beard in Hugo's correspondence. «Conclusion: a man's head must be handsome, well-touched with intelligence and illumined by thought, in order to look well without a beard; a human face has to be very ugly, indeed...

Original albumen photograph in carte-de-visite format, mounted on Pierre Petit cardboard mount, with his mark on the reverse.
Full-length portrait of Gustave Doré, dressed in white, around age 30, with mustache. Very rare photograph of the painter in his youth.
Manuscript annotation on the reverse.
The Musée d'Orsay holds a photograph of Doré by Pierre Petit from the same period but the artist wears a black velvet waistcoat, a black coat, hands in pockets.

Extremely rare original albumen photograph, carte-de-visite format in a medallion, mounted on cardboard.
We have been unable to find any copy of this photograph in international public collections.

Photographic portrait of Gustave Courbet “à la canne”
Original photograph on albumin paper, in a visiting-card format, laid down on card from the studio of Pierre Petit in Paris.
Manuscript annotations to verso.
Portraits of Courbet by Pierre Petit are very rare, the painter having been mostly photographed by Carjat, a pupil of Petit's.
We have been able to find only two copies of this photograph in the United States: one at the Detroit Institute of Arts Museum, the other at the Fine Art Museum of San Francisco.

Original photograph of Alexandre Dumas.
Contemporary albumen print mounted on card, studio mark of the photographer Pierre Petit to verso.

Handsome autograph signature by Alexandre Dumas under the portrait in an elegant hand.

Rare.