Julien Vallou de Villeneuve (12 December 1795 – 4 May 1866) was a French painter, lithographer and photographer.
Life and work
Vallou de Villeneuve studied with
Jean-François Millet
Jean-François Millet (; 4 October 1814 – 20 January 1875) was a French artist and one of the founders of the Barbizon school in rural France. Millet is noted for his paintings of peasant farmers and can be categorized as part of the Realism ...
, and started his career at the Salon of 1814, exhibiting images depicting daily life, fashion, regional costumes and nude studies. In 1826 he showed at the Salon 'Costumes des Provinces Septentrionales des Pays-Bas'. He published in 1829 lithographs of ''Types des Femmes''. In 1830 with Achille Devera and Numas, Maurin and Tessaert, he contributed to the compendium of
erotica
Erotica is literature or art that deals substantively with subject matter that is erotic, sexually stimulating or sexually arousing. Some critics regard pornography as a type of erotica, but many consider it to be different. Erotic art may use ...
''Imagerie Galante'' (Paris 1830). He developed an international following for his 1839 folio-sized
lithographic
Lithography () is a planographic method of printing originally based on the immiscibility of oil and water. The printing is from a stone (lithographic limestone) or a metal plate with a smooth surface. It was invented in 1796 by the German a ...
erotic series ''Les Jeunes Femmes, Groupes de Tetes'', depicting racy episodes in the life of young women and their lovers.
From 1842 de Villeneuve took up photography, not long after its invention, as an adjunct and aid to his graphic work, producing some
daguerreotypes
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 ...
but predominantly softly toned
salted paper prints from paper negatives that enabled the retouching he employed for artistic effect. Following the method of Humbert de Molard, he fixed his prints with
ammonia
Ammonia is an inorganic compound of nitrogen and hydrogen with the formula . A stable binary hydride, and the simplest pnictogen hydride, ammonia is a colourless gas with a distinct pungent smell. Biologically, it is a common nitrogenous wa ...
which avoided the bleaching of highlights caused in salt prints by
hypo, and thus incidentally ensured the
archival
An archive is an accumulation of historical records or materials – in any medium – or the physical facility in which they are located.
Archives contain primary source documents that have accumulated over the course of an individual or ...
permanence of his prints, which survive today. He had many of his prints made by
photolithographer Rose-Joseph Lemercier (1803–1887). In 1850 de Villeneuve opened a photographic studio at 18
Rue Bleue, Paris, where his subjects were 'academic studies', small prints of nudes as models for artists. He printed a series of these studies as 'Etudes d’apres nature', and many were published in ''La Lumiere'', journal of the Society Francaise de la Photographie. There was also a ready market for his photographs of well-known actors in full costume posing against theatrical scenery.
In 1851 he joined the world's first, but short-lived (1851–1853), photographic organisation, the ''Société héliographique'' From 1853 to 1854 he was a founding member of the ''
Société française de photographie
The Société française de photographie (SFP) is an association, founded on 15 November 1854, devoted to the history of photography. It has a large collection of photographs and old cameras.
Among the founding members were Olympe Aguado, Hippoly ...
'' (S.F.P.) that replaced it.
Vallou de Villeneuve and Courbet
Realist painter
Gustave Courbet
Jean Désiré Gustave Courbet ( , , ; 10 June 1819 – 31 December 1877) was a French painter who led the Realism movement in 19th-century French painting. Committed to painting only what he could see, he rejected academic convention and ...
was introduced to Vallou de Villeneuve's photographs by fellow artist
Alfred Bruyas
Alfred Bruyas (15 August 1821 – 1 January 1877) was an art collector and a personal friend of many important artists of his time, among them Gustave Courbet. He donated his collection to the Musée Fabre, in Montpellier.
Born Jacques Louis ...
during the 1850s and used them as source material for his paintings, in particular ''
L'Atelier'' (1855) and ''Les Baigneuses ''(1853). In 1954, the 27th
Venice Biennale
The Venice Biennale (; it, La Biennale di Venezia) is an international cultural exhibition hosted annually in Venice, Italy by the Biennale Foundation. The biennale has been organised every year since 1895, which makes it the oldest of ...
presented a large-scale retrospective devoted to Gustave Courbet; one of the first major exhibitions devoted to the painter.
_and_Helene_Adhémar_(conservator,__Department_of_Paintings_at_the_Louvre.html" ;"title="ené Michel/nowiki>">ené Michel">Bazin, Germain [René Michel/nowiki>, ''Dictionary of Art ...
and Helene Adhémar (conservator, Department of Paintings at the Louvre">ené Michel/nowiki>">ené Michel">Bazin, Germain [René Michel/nowiki>, ''Dictionary of Art ...