Untitled (French Military Heroes and Political Leaders) (mid-1860s): Art, History and Details

Untitled (French Military Heroes and Political Leaders) (mid-1860s) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is André Adolphe-Eugène Disdéri (French, 1819–1889).

The work and its context

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

A mosaic was produced by cutting photographs of hundreds of figures away from their backgrounds, mounting the likenesses on a single sheet, photographing that collage, and printing the result on 6 x 9 cm cards. These entertaining images sold well and were effective advertising for the photographer’s prowess. A list identifying each individual accompanied the mosaics, but most of those sheets have been lost.

Object facts

• Title: Untitled (French Military Heroes and Political Leaders)
• Date: mid-1860s
• Creator attribution: André Adolphe-Eugène Disdéri (French, 1819–1889)
• Culture: France
• Type: Photograph
• Technique: albumen print, montage carte-de-visite
• Dimensions: Image: 9.2 x 5.8 cm (3 5/8 x 2 5/16 in.); Paper: 10.1 x 6.2 cm (4 x 2 7/16 in.)
• Collection: PH - French 19th Century
• Department: Photography
• Accession number: 2017.12

A detail from the museum

This montage of France’s military and other leaders is a mosaic carte, a form invented by Disdéri in 1863.

Collection credit

John Cook Memorial 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.