[Photographie] Portrait photographique de Alfred de Vigny

Original albumen carte-de-visite photograph. Salted paper print. One of the first portraits of the poet, who was one of the photographer's first subjects. Rare, like all the first portraits by Nadar of Vigny.
Photograph mounted on rigid gray cardboard, extracted from a collector's photograph album. In pen in the lower margin, Le Cte Alfred de Vigny, and in the right margin NADAR in capitals.
One of Nadar's first portraits where his refined style already emerges. "Nadar photographie ses modèles simplement, n'utilisant que la lumière naturelle et zénithale diffusée par les verrières et réfléchie par de grands panneaux mobiles. Les poses à la manière d'Ingres valent surtout pour l'intimité et la complicité qu'il sait créer avec ses sujets. « La photographie est à la portée du premier des imbéciles, elle s'apprend en une heure. Ce qui ne s'apprend pas, c'est le sentiment de la lumière [...] et encore moins l'intelligence morale de votre sujet [...] et la ressemblance intime », dira-t-il. Dans cette période, où le portrait s'industrialise dans un académisme convenu, Nadar supprime les accessoires et décors conventionnels et refuse la retouche, au profit de « l'expression vraie et de cet instant de compréhension qui vous met en contact avec le modèle, qui vous aide à le résumer, vous guide vers ses idées et son caractère »." ["Nadar photographs his subjects simply, using only natural and zenithal light diffused through glass roofs and reflected by large movable panels. The poses in the manner of Ingres are valuable above all for the intimacy and complicity he knows how to create with his subjects. 'Photography is within reach of the first fool, it is learned in an hour. What cannot be learned is the feeling for light [...] and even less the moral intelligence of your subject [...] and intimate resemblance,' he would say. In this period, when portraiture becomes industrialized in conventional academicism, Nadar eliminates conventional accessories and decor and refuses retouching, in favor of 'true expression and that instant of understanding which puts you in contact with the model, which helps you to summarize him, guides you toward his ideas and his character'."] (Claude Postel : connaissance des arts). The Nadar firm would execute later prints of this negative but this one is indeed a demonstration print, not intended for commercial use.
Like Baudelaire, Vigny deplored the fashion for photography and particularly that of portraits, but he paradoxically maintained his own collection of carte-de-visite photographs and at the end of his life, he multiplied posing sessions, first at Nadar's then at Le Gray's. Around 1855 he shows concern for his image, the one he will leave to posterity, and his photographic portraits must convey the character of the poet he wishes to leave behind. Thus we discover him in this portrait in a sphinx-like attitude, seated rather rigidly in a velvet armchair, his gaze directed toward the horizon, arms crossed, his right hand holding a mechanical pencil, emblem of his vocation, the rosette of the Legion of Honor adorning his collar.