991
Lippmann images, which display their internal layered
structure. Based on his surviving Lippmann images, he
was a master of the process.
A primary source of interest for him in his photo-
graphic pursuits was the search for a color photographic
process that would render high fi delity color images of
microscopic subjects. In this goal he appears to have
succeeded, as there is a superb Lippmann-type image
of a microscope slide of a thin section of a human
liver, showing the presence of a parasite, held at the
National Technical Museum in Prague. Due to the super
high resolution of Lippmann-type images, it would be
capable of extreme further enlargement. As it is it is
simply beautiful.
William R. Alschuler
NEURDEIN FRÈRES
French company
One of the leading commercial photographic fi rms of
the late nineteenth century, Neurdein Frères offered a
diverse production including portraits, architectural and
picturesque views of France and neighboring countries,
and studies of provincial or North African women in
traditional costume. Also heavily involved in photog-
raphy of works of art shown in the Paris Salon and
of the temporary architecture of several World Fairs,
Neurdein Frères eventually acquired semioffi cial status,
managing and supplementing the French government’s
archives of photographs of historical monuments. These
added administrative duties led to the withdrawal of
Neurdein Frères from other photographic activities
and to its eventual merger with a rival fi rm. Though its
work was extensively published by Neurdein Frères
itself and by other fi rms, it is not widely known today.
Recent controversies over “Orientalist” photographs of
women, however, have again brought attention to works
by Neurdein Frères.
Little is known about the background of the Neurdein
family. Etienne (1832–after 1915) and Louis-Antonin
Neurdein (1846–after 1915) were the sons of the pho-
tographer Jean César Neurdein, who worked under the
pseudonym of Charlet. In 1863, one of the Neurdeins
operated a studio on the Rue des Filles-du-Calvaire in
Paris. Subsequent Parisian locations of the Neurdein
fi rm were the Rue des Filles-Saint-Thomas, Boulevard
de Sébastopol, and Avenue de Breteuil. By 1868 the
fi rm, now under the name E. Neurdein, advertised
portraits of historical personalities and contemporary
celebrities and already offered views of France, Bel-
gium, and Algeria. The views were sold initially as
albumin prints, later sometimes as gelatin silver prints,
and were also reproduced in postcard format under the
names ND Phot. or X Phot. The fi rm also became in-
volved in extensive book publication based on its own
photographs.
The brothers maintained a division of labor: Etienne
managed the studio in Paris and made portraits, while
Louis-Antonin traveled extensively, making architec-
tural and landscape views.
The portraits, whether of prominent or little-known
individuals, were usually in carte-de-visite format and
differed little from comparable work produced by other
photographic fi rms of the period. One Neurdein portrait,
however, a Woodburytype of the chemist and political
revolutionary François-Vincent Raspail, was included
in 1878 in the prestigious Galerie Contemporaine, a
lavish biographical publication dominated by works by
the well-known portraitists Nadar and Etienne Carjat.
The undated portrait of Raspail, who died in that year,
depicts a still-forceful older man.
Views of castles, cathedrals, and architectural decora-
tions, particularly in the French provinces, made up a
large part of the fi rm’s production; in this the Neurdeins
emulated the role of other prominent European fi rms,
such as Fratelli Alinari of Florence, in documenting
architectural and artistic monuments. The selection of
views offered was vast: a catalogue published by the fi rm
in 1900, covering only works available in postcard for-
mat, ran more than fi ve hundred pages. Louis-Antonin
was by no means, however, the only photographer re-
cording historic French architecture, and it is diffi cult to
defi ne a style Neurdein that might separate his work from
views made by rival fi rms. Neurdein’s photographs of
medieval buildings, such as the Abbaye-aux-Hommes,
Caen, are often taken from rooftop level to give views
clearly separating the subject from the surrounding
townscape. Other images provide valuable documen-
tation of much vernacular architecture that has since
disappeared due to war damage or modernization. This
interest in bird’s-eye views eventually may have led to
Louis-Antonin’s experiments with panoramic photog-
raphy, especially of Paris, one of the most distinctive
areas of his work.
Around 1900 Neurdein Frères branched into a new
endeavor, depicting Algerian and Tunisian women in
native costume in images disseminated both as albumin
prints and postcards. This popular genre belongs more
to erotica than to ethnology: the models often are over-
dressed and seminude at the same time. Such images
have been condemned in recent years as manifestations
of colonialist domination. It is true that these photo-
graphs are quite different from Neurdein’s earlier, more
sedate images of Alsatian or Breton women in folkloric
costume, and the intervention of a local photographer
working for the fi rm is a possibility. The North African
fi gure studies are nevertheless more discreet than com-
parable images produced by rival fi rms such as Lehnert
& Landrock, Geiser, or Lévy.