An Effect of the Sun, Normandy (c. 1856): Art, History and Details

An Effect of the Sun, Normandy (c. 1856) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is Gustave Le Gray (French, 1820–1884).

The work and its context

The museum's open-access catalogue describes the work:

Exploring the dramatic effects of sunlight, clouds, and water, Gustave Le Gray gained immediate recognition for his landmark photographs of the Mediterranean Sea and the English Channel taken between 1856 and 1858. At this time photographic emulsions were not equally sensitive to all colors of the spectrum, making it impossible to achieve a proper exposure for both sea and sky in a single image. Thus, for may of his seascapes Le Gray printed two negatives on a single sheet of paper, a technique called combination printing. One negative was taken of the water and the other of the sky. The overlap often apparent in such multiple negative images is not visible in this skillfully executed print.

Object facts

• Title: An Effect of the Sun, Normandy
• Date: c. 1856
• Creator attribution: Gustave Le Gray (French, 1820–1884)
• Culture: France, 19th century
• Type: Photograph
• Technique: albumen print from wet collodion negative
• Dimensions: Image: 32 x 41.8 cm (12 5/8 x 16 7/16 in.); Matted: 55.9 x 71.1 cm (22 x 28 in.)
• Collection: Photography
• Department: Photography
• Accession number: 1987.54

Collection credit

Andrew R. and Martha Holden Jennings Fund

Further reading listed by the museum

• Turner, Evan H. “The Year in Review for 1987.” The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 75, no. 2 (February 1988): 30–71.
• Cleveland Museum of Art, Tom E Hinson. Catalogue of Photography. Cleveland, OH: Cleveland Museum of Art, 1996.

View the collection record

See the museum's photographs and full catalogue entry. Catalogue text is reproduced from the Cleveland Museum of Art's open-access data, with HTML formatting removed. This object and its supplied image are designated CC0.