Lot 32: Desire Charnay

Desire Charnay
madagascar. 'femmes malgaches', 1863
Albumen Print, mounted on card, titled in pencil on the mount below the image, numbered '28' in pencil top left and again close to right edge,
184 by 153mm
Charnay spent three months in Madagascar in 1863 as diarist and photographer for a French scientific expedition. He made a small series of full length portraits of local types, with shallow depth of field causing the subject to stand out sharply against a diffused background. Few prints have survived, though a number feature in the pre-eminent Gilman and Bokelberg collections.
Provenance:
Galerie Octant, Paris, 1985.
Literature:
For reference to other images from this project see: Andre Jammes and Robert Sobieszek, French Primitive Photography, Philadelphia Museum of Art, 1969, cat. nos. 142-150; Werner Bokelberg, Happy Birthday Photography, Zurich, 1989, cat. nos. 83-84; Maria Morris Hambourg, Pierre Apraxine, Malcolm Daniel, Jeff L. Rosenheim and Virginia Heckert, The Waking Dream - Photography's First Century - Selections from the Gilman Paper Company Collection, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 1993, cat. nos. 110-111, pp. 307-8 and p. 77, p.105.