Chemin de fer de Toulouse à Bayonne. Pont de l'Aran (en trois arches de 17m d'ouverture chacune). Situation des travaux au 21 juillet 1861 (1861): Art, History and Details

Chemin de fer de Toulouse à Bayonne. Pont de l'Aran (en trois arches de 17m d'ouverture chacune). Situation des travaux au 21 juillet 1861 (1861) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is Édouard Baldus (French, 1813–1889).

The work and its context

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

Edouard Baldus, the most important French 19th-century architectural photographer, here reveals the process of constructing a bridge. In 1861 he was commissioned by the railway company that owned the principal route across southwest France to document the region’s landscape, towns, monuments, and railroad structures such as bridges and viaducts.

Object facts

• Title: Chemin de fer de Toulouse à Bayonne. Pont de l'Aran (en trois arches de 17m d'ouverture chacune). Situation des travaux au 21 juillet 1861
• Date: 1861
• Creator attribution: Édouard Baldus (French, 1813–1889)
• Culture: France
• Type: Photograph
• Technique: albumen print from collodion negative
• Dimensions: Image: 31.1 x 43.2 cm (12 1/4 x 17 in.)
• Collection: PH - French 19th Century
• Department: Photography
• Accession number: 2021.55

A detail from the museum

The rise of photography coincided with the creation of the railroads and the modernization of France.

Collection credit

Gift of Michael Mattis and Judith Hochberg

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.