Saint-Honorat, Prés d'Arles (1853): Art, History and Details

Saint-Honorat, Prés d'Arles (1853) 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:

Two years after his initial photographic trip to Provence, Baldus returned in 1853 to again document some of the region’s most imposing classical and medieval architectural monuments. His genius both as an architectural photographer and as a printer is easily witnessed in this extraordinary photograph taken in Arles. It depicts an ancient cemetery, the Alyscamps, in the foreground, with the unfinished Romanesque Church of Saint Honorat, dominated by its distinctive two-story bell tower, in the background. On this photographic campaign, this image was the rare occasion when Baldus succeeded in his desire to combine a picturesque aesthetic with an interest in the medieval past. Thirty-five years later, in the fall of 1888, Paul Gauguin and Vincent van Gogh made several paintings of the Alyscamps. Dudley P. Allen Fund 2009.5

Object facts

• Title: Saint-Honorat, Prés d'Arles
• Date: 1853
• Creator attribution: Édouard Baldus (French, 1813–1889)
• Culture: France, 19th century
• Type: Photograph
• Technique: salt print from waxed paper negative
• Dimensions: Image: 33.5 x 43.2 cm (13 3/16 x 17 in.); Paper: 33.5 x 43.2 cm (13 3/16 x 17 in.); Matted: 50.8 x 61 cm (20 x 24 in.)
• Collection: PH - French 19th Century
• Department: Photography
• Accession number: 2009.5

Collection credit

Dudley P. Allen Fund

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.