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Although photographs by Baldus—especially the
small-format albumen prints of the 1860s—are rela-
tively common, richly printed, well preserved salted
paper prints of his best work of the 1850s are indeed rare.
Newly discovered prints—some of previously unknown
images—have appeared steadily throughout the late
1980s, 1990s, and 2000s as the market for nineteenth-
century photographs has matured. An important cache of
exceptionally beautiful, unmounted salted paper prints
from the mid-1850s was discovered in 1988-89 by the
descendents of Léon Bourquelot, Baldus’s contact in
the offi ce of the Architect of the Louvre.
The Musée d’Orsay, Paris, holds the most important
collection of Baldus photographs including the negatives
from his mission héliographique and 1856 fl ood series
as well as many fi ne salted paper prints of his work
from the 1850s. Other signifi cant Baldus holdings in
public institutions include: Médiathèque du Patrimoine,
Paris, notably for mission héliographique prints; École
des Beaux-Arts, Paris, and École Nationale des Ponts
et Chaussées, Paris, both of which collected Baldus’s
work in the nineteenth century for their students’ edifi -
cation; Canadian Centre for Architecture, Montreal; J.
Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles, including two copies
of the PLM album; The Metropolitan Museum of Art,
New York; and Gilman Paper Company Collection,
New York.
Malcolm Daniel
Biography
The second of eight children and the eldest son of
Johann Peter Baldus and Elisabeth Weber, Eduard was
born in Grünebach, Prussia, on June 5, 1813. Little is
known about the fi rst twenty-fi ve years of his life. He
moved to Paris in 1838 to study painting and changed
the spelling of his name to “Édouard” (he has often
been referred to erroneously as “Édouard-Denis”). In
September 1845 he married a French woman ten years
his junior, Élisabeth-Caroline Étienne, and within four
years was the father of two daughters and a son. He
was naturalized a French citizen in June 1856 and was
awarded the Legion d’honneur in August 1860.
Baldus began photographing in 1848, and was a
founding member of the Société héliographique in 1851,
the year in which he received a mission héliographique
to photograph historic monuments, principally in
Provence. The following year he began a critically
acclaimed and commercially successful series of
large-format photographs that continued for more than
a decade; his principal subjects included architectural
monuments of Paris and the French provinces, particu-
larly Provence (1852–61); landscapes of the Auvergne
(1854) and southeastern France (1860–61); railroad
and civil engineering works, particularly along the
routes of the Northern and Paris-Lyon-Méditerranée
lines (1855–62); the construction of the New Louvre
(1855–58); and the Rhône River fl oods (1856). From
1866 to 1884 the majority of his efforts were devoted
to the publication of photogravures. He fi led for bank-
ruptcy in January 1887 and died December 22, 1889,
in Arcueil-Cachan, a suburb south of Paris, where he is
buried in the local cemetery.
Baldus’s work was sold by at least two dozen book
and/or print sellers in Paris and throughout Europe. He
participated in many exhibitions, including the follow-
ing: Photographic Society of London, 1854; Tentoon-
stelling van Photographie en Heliographie gehouden
door de Vereeniging voor Volksvlijt, Amsterdam, 1855;
Exposition Universelle, Paris, 1855; 1st Annual Exhi-
bition of the Photographic Society of Scotland, Edin-
burgh, 1856; Photographic Society of London, 1856;
Manchester Photographic Society, Exhibition of Photo-
graphs at the Mechanics’ Institution, 1856; Exposition
Instituté par l’Association pour l’Encouragement et le
Développement des Arts Industriels en Belgique, Brus-
sells, 1856; Deuxième Exposition Annuelle, Société
Française de Photographie, 1857; Exposition Instituté
par l’Association pour l’Encouragement et le Dével-
oppement des Arts Industriels en Belgique, Brussells,
1857; Architectural Photographic Association, London,
1858; Photographic Society of London, Fifth Year, 1858;
Architectural Photographic Association, Second Annual
Exhibition, London, 1858–59; Troisième Exposition de
la Société Française de Photographie, 1859; Exhibition
of photographs, Aberdeen, 1859; Architectural Photo-
graphic Association, Third Annual Exhibition, London,
1860; Exposition Photographique d’Amsterdam, 1860;
Architectural Photographic Association, Fourth An-
nual Exhibition of English and Foreign Photographs,
London, 1861; Quatrième Exposition de la Société
Française de Photographie, 1861; Exposition de la
Société Photographique de Marseille, 1861; Universal
Exhibition, London, 1862; Exposition Universelle,
Paris, 1867; Huitième Exposition de la Société Fran-
çaise de Photographie, 1869; Exposition de la Société
Photographique de Marseille, 1871; Welt-Ausstellung,
Vienna, 1873; Dixième Exposition de la Société Fran-
çaise de Photographie, 1874.
Baldus’s publications included: Concours de Pho-
tographie (1852); Vitraux de l’Église Sainte-Clotilde
(1853); Réunion des Tuileries au Louvre (1857); Re-
cueil d’Ornements (1866); Oeuvre de Marc-Antoine
Raimondi (1867); Oeuvre de Jacques Androuet dit Du
Cerceau (ca. 1969); Palais du Louvre et des Tuileries
(1869–71); Palais de Versailles (early 1870s); Les
Principaux Monuments de la France (early 1870s);
Reconstruction de l’Hôtel de Ville de Paris (1884).