Gorge at Eaux Chaudes, Pyrenees (c. 1855): Art, History and Details

Gorge at Eaux Chaudes, Pyrenees (c. 1855) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is Jean-Jacques Heilmann (French, 1822–1859).

The work and its context

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

The town of Pau, in the foothills of the Pyrenees Mountains, was a popular vacation spot for British tourists and one of several centers for photography in France in the 1850s. Jean-Jacques Heilmann, who lived in Pau, photographed the road that ran through the mountains to the village of Eaux-Chaudes with its popular hot springs. The road had just been built in 1849. It greatly eased access to Eaux-Chaudes and offered dramatic views.

Object facts

• Title: Gorge at Eaux Chaudes, Pyrenees
• Date: c. 1855
• Creator attribution: Jean-Jacques Heilmann (French, 1822–1859)
• Culture: France, 19th century
• Type: Photograph
• Technique: salted paper print from wet collodion negative
• Dimensions: Image: 25.8 x 19.7 cm (10 3/16 x 7 3/4 in.); Matted: 61 x 50.8 cm (24 x 20 in.)
• Collection: PH - French 19th Century
• Department: Photography
• Accession number: 1995.27

A detail from the museum

The town of Eaux-Chaudes, a tourist destination since the late 1500s, had hot springs reputed to have healing waters.

Collection credit

Andrew R. and Martha Holden Jennings Fund

Further reading listed by the museum

• 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.