Lot 110: Eugène Cuvelier 1837-1900 , fontainebleau, winter, near the porte de rochefort

salt print, numbered '12' by the photographer in the negative, mounted on gray board, matted, late 1850s or early 1860s

measurements note 7¾ by 10¼ in. (19.7 by 26 cm.)

Monterey Museum of Art, Passion and Precision: Photographs from the Collection of Margaret W. Weston , January - April 2003

Ulrike Gauss, Henning Weidemann, and Daniel Challe, Eugène Cuvelier
(Stuttgart, 1996, in conjunction with the exhibition), no. 12, and p. 91 (this print)
Another print of this image:
Christoph Heilman, Michael Clarke, and John Sillevis, Corot, Courbet und die Mahler von Barbizon
(Munich, 1996), p. 450

The accurate rendering of a snowy scene has vexed photographers throughout the medium?s history. The extreme whiteness and reflectivity of snow create a technical challenge that can only be overcome through careful exposure of the negative and expert printing. The limitations of the photographic materials available in Eugène Cuvelier?s time essentially eliminated snow as subject matter for most photographers. Cuvelier, however, had thoroughly mastered the photographic process, and seems to have enjoyed tackling challenging subject matter, such as a rare snowfall within the forest of Fontainebleau. In this image, Cuvelier masterfully handled the vastly different tonal values of the bright snow and the dark surrounding trees and rocks, creating an image that is richly evocative of this snow-covered forest path. It is one of the rare photographs of the time in which weather features so prominently. Eugène Cuvelier first visited the forest of Fontainebleau in the late 1850s. He was born in the northern French town of Arras, and learned photography from his father, Adalbert Cuvelier. It was through his father that Eugène was introduced to the French painter Camille Corot, and then to other artists in what is now known as the Barbizon School, among them Théodore Rousseau and Jean-François Millet. In 1859, he married Marie-Louis Ganne ? the daughter the principle innkeeper in the town of Barbizon, at the western edge of the Fontainebleau forest ? and soon thereafter began photographing the forest and its environs with a sensitivity and sophistication that has never been matched. The photograph offered here has a low negative number ? ?12? ? indicating that it is likely one of the photographer?s earliest efforts in the forest. The present photograph was taken near the Porte de Rochefort, the entryway to the forest at the end of the Chemin de Rochefort in the village of Barbizon. Several years after this photograph was taken, Jean-François Millet treated similar subject matter in his pastel drawing, Entrance to the Forest, Winter in Barbizon (1866-67) now in the collection of Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Ulrike Gauss, in her catalogue raisonné of Eugène Cuvelier?s work (listed above), accounts for a total of three salt prints of this image, including the photograph offered here.