Untitled (Nude) (1851–1852): Art, History and Details

Untitled (Nude) (1851–1852) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is Alexis-Louis-Charles-Arthur Gouin (French, 1855).

The work and its context

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

A master of commercial portrait photography, Gouin specialized in hand-painted stereoscopic daguerreotypes. Derived from the inventions of Sir Charles Wheatstone (1802-1875) in 1832 and Sir David Brewster (1781-1868) in 1849, the stereoscopic technique produced two almost identical photographic images. When seen simultaneously in a viewing instrument called a stereoscope, the resulting effect was an astonishing illusion of three-dimensional space. This rare example comes from an important group of nude studies Gouin created in the early 1850s. To create the image, Gouin carefully posed a favorite model--Delphine Herbé, a florist--in his third-floor studio where the bright, natural light would define her body. Drapery was used to relieve the monotony of the background and heighten the three-dimensionality of the model's form and echo its contours. Gouin's training as a painter of miniatures is evident in the delicacy of the hand-coloring and in the subtle, naturalistic application of pigment over the polished surface of the plate.

Object facts

• Title: Untitled (Nude)
• Date: 1851–1852
• Creator attribution: Alexis-Louis-Charles-Arthur Gouin (French, 1855)
• Culture: France, 19th century
• Type: Photograph
• Technique: stereoscopic daguerreotype, hand-colored, 2/6th plate
• Dimensions: Image: 6.5 x 5.5 cm (2 9/16 x 2 3/16 in.); Overall: 8.4 x 16.8 cm (3 5/16 x 6 5/8 in.); Matted: 35.6 x 45.7 cm (14 x 18 in.)
• Collection: PH - French 19th Century
• Department: Photography
• Accession number: 1999.8

Collection credit

Dudley P. Allen Fund

Further reading listed by the museum

• Cleveland Museum of Art, “Major Benin Bronze Plaque, Rembrandt Print, Other Works of Art Enter CMA Collection,” March 12, 1999, Cleveland Museum of Art Archives.

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.