Félix-Jacques Antoine Moulin (27 March 1802 – 12 December 1875) was a French photographer.
In 1849, Moulin opened a photographer's studio at 31 bis rue du Faubourg Montmartre and started producing
daguerreotype
Daguerreotype (; french: daguerréotype) was the first publicly available photographic process; it was widely used during the 1840s and 1850s. "Daguerreotype" also refers to an image created through this process.
Invented by Louis Daguerre an ...
s of young girls aged 14 to 16. In 1851, Moulin's work was confiscated, and he was sentenced to one month imprisonment for the "obscene" character of his works, "so obscene that even to pronounce the titles (...) would violate public morality" according to court records.
After his release, Moulin continued his activities more discreetly. He taught photography, sold photographic equipment, and had a backdoor installed to his studio to dodge further legal problems. His works gained esteem from critics.
In 1856, Moulin made a photographic trip to
Algeria
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, image_map = Algeria (centered orthographic projection).svg
, map_caption =
, image_map2 =
, capital = Algiers
, coordinates =
, largest_city = capital
, relig ...
, with a tonne of equipment, backed and financed by the French government, which allowed it to gain benefit from the structures of
colonialism
Colonialism is a practice or policy of control by one people or power over other people or areas, often by establishing colonies and generally with the aim of economic dominance. In the process of colonisation, colonisers may impose their relig ...
. There, he met technical difficulties due to variations in humidity, work in the open, and the quality of water, but managed nonetheless to extensively document the benefit of French colonies in Northern Africa. He came back in 1858 with hundreds of photographs of landscapes, cities, archeologic surveys and portraits of inhabitants, and published 300 of them as ''L'Algérie photographiée'', a three-volume
in folio
The size of a book is generally measured by the height against the width of a leaf, or sometimes the height and width of its cover. A series of terms is commonly used by libraries and publishers for the general sizes of modern books, ranging from ...
work. These documents became official brochures of the colonial rule of
Napoléon III
Napoleon III (Charles Louis Napoléon Bonaparte; 20 April 18089 January 1873) was the first President of France (as Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte) from 1848 to 1852 and the last monarch of France as Emperor of the French from 1852 to 1870. A nephew ...
, to whom the work was dedicated.
They toured Europe in several expositions.
Moulin retired in 1862 and died in 1875.
Image:Nude woman in colored daguerreotype by Félix-Jacques Moulin.jpg, Nude woman in colored daguerreotype by Moulin, circa 1851–1854
Image:Archeology Moulin.jpg, Archeologic survey, photography of ancient Roman inscriptions from Cherchell
Cherchell (Arabic: شرشال) is a town on Algeria's Mediterranean coast, west of Algiers. It is the seat of Cherchell District in Tipaza Province. Under the names Iol and Caesarea, it was formerly a Roman colony and the capital of the k ...
, 1856
Image:Moulin 16.jpg, Si Hassan Lieutenant Senac Seliman, 1856
References
External links
getty.edu
1802 births
1875 deaths
French photographers
{{France-photographer-stub