567567
GALERIE CONTEMPORAINE
on May 5, 1888, in a Presbyterian ceremony witnessed
by Lindemann. In 1894, Gaensly and his wife moved to
São Paulo. He ran a branch of “Gaensly & Lindemann”
until the partnership was dissolved in around 1900, and
continued working there until about 1915. He died in
São Paulo on June 20, 1928, survived by Ida Gaensly,
who lived there until her death in 1933.
See also: Ferrez, Marc; Henschel, Albert; Mulock,
Benjamin; Stahl, Auguste; Landscape; Cartes-de-
Visite; Card Formats: Minor Formats; Expositions
Universelle, Paris (1854, 1855, 1867, etc.); and
Albumen Print
Further Reading
Anonymous, Guilherme Gaensly e Augusto Malta: dois mestres
da fotografi a brasileira no Acervo Brascan. São Paulo: Insti-
tuto Moreira Salles, 2002.
Carvalho, Vânia Carneiro de, “A representação da natureza na
pintura e na fotografi a brasileiras do século XIX,” in Fabris,
Annateresa (org.). Fotografi a: usos e funções no século XIX.
São Paulo: Edusp, 1991.
Dietrich, Ana Maria, Imagens de São Paulo: Gaensly no acervo
da Light: 1899–1925 / researched and written by: Ana Maria
Dietrich, Ricardo Mendes, Sergio Burgi; organized by: Vera
Maria de Barros Ferraz. São Paulo: Fundação Patrimônio
Histórico da Energia de São Paulo, 2001.
Ferrez, Gilberto, Bahia, Velhas Fotografi as 1858/1900, Rio de
Janeiro: Kosmos Editora, 1989.
Kossoy, Boris, Origens e expansão da fotografi a no Brasil: século
XIX. Rio de Janeiro: Funarte, 1980.
Kossoy, Boris, Álbum de Fotografi as do Estado de São Paulo.
São Paulo: CBPO/Kosmos, 1984.
Kossoy, Boris, São Paulo, 1900: Imagens de Guilherme Gaensly,
São Paulo: CBPO/Kosmos, 1988.
Levasseur, Émile, O Brasil. Rio de Janeiro: Bom Texto, 2001.
Martins, Ana Cecília, Miller, Marcela and Sochaczewski, Mo-
nique (org.), Iconografi a Baiana do Século XIX na Biblioteca
Nacional, Rio de Janeiro: Fundação Biblioteca Nacional, 2005.
Vasquez, Pedro, Mestres da fotografi a no Brasil: Coleção
Gilberto Ferrez. Rio de Janeiro: Centro Cultural Banco do
Brasil, 1995.
Vasquez, Pedro, “A Fotografi a no Brasil do século dezenove—do
Pará a São Paulo,” in A Fotografi a no Brasil do século XIX.
São Paulo: Pinacoteca do Estado de São Paulo, 1993.
GALE, COLONEL JOSEPH (1830–1906)
English
Gale was a London architect and part-time soldier, serv-
ing with the 10th Surrey Rifl e Volunteer Corps where
he rose to the rank of Lieutenant Colonel.
Gale fi rst took up photography in 1859 as an aid to
his profession using a 10 × 8 inch Ottewill camera, later
he used both stereo and panoramic cameras to make his
studies. In 1866 Gale joined the Amateur Photographic
Field Club whose 25 fellow members shared his inter-
est in “mead and stream” subject matter, remaining a
member until his death in 1906.
From 1879 he became a regular exhibitor at the
Photographic Society’s annual exhibitions, where he
displayed examples of his favored pictorial subjects,
which he largely took in the southern English counties
of Berkshire, Surrey and Sussex, often in the company
of fellow photographer and friend, George Davison.
Gale, who recorded the rapidly changing way of
rural life at the end of the 19th Century, was noted for
the quality of his work which he printed using albumen,
gelatin-silver and platinum papers, he also produced
lantern slides. Gale’s best-known picture was the
widely-published 1887 view “Sleepy Hollow,” a classic
naturalistic study of a pair of heavy-horses at a ford.
Gale was one of the fi rst members of the Linked Ring,
being elected in May 1892 and taking the pseudonym
“Rambler.”
Ian SumnerGALERIE CONTEMPORAINE
The cult of celebrity was fuelled, in France as elsewhere,
by the ready availability of portraits of public fi gures. Es-
sentially an urban phenomenon, the collection of visual
representations of noteworthy persons pre-dates photog-
raphy, and by the middle of the nineteenth century the
commerce in engraved and lithographed portraits was
widespread. The advent of photography, coupled with
the growth in the popular press, led to further expansion
in the phenomenon of celebrity portraiture, especially
of stars of the Parisian operatic and theatre world. The
public’s taste for such imagery was catered for by serial
publications such as Paris-Théâtre, founded in 1873, at
25 centimes per copy.
Another serial publication, Galerie Contemporaine,
stands out due to its ambitious scope, as well as for the
quality of photographic imagery it contained. Under-
pinned by a certain patriotic sentiment and a more so-
phisticated approach to celebrity, the subtitle Littéraire
Artistique declares the work’s focus of interest to be
high art. In fact Galerie Contemporaine evolved into the
most impressive set of celebrity portraits published in
nineteenth-century France, forming a vital visual record
of the leading fi gures who shaped public life, in science
and politics as well as the arts, during the Second Empire
and the emergent Third Republic.
Within its pages, some of the most emblematic por-
traits of the era appeared, such as Charles Baudelaire by
Carjat, Alphonse Karr by Adam-Salomon and George
Sand by Nadar. The usual claims to photography’s
superiority and importance for posterity are set out
in the introduction to volume III: “Voilà pourquoi ce
livre sera consulté plus tard, avec fruit; car le portrait
dessiné, toujours suspect, même chez les peintres de
génie, a été remplacé par la photographie, chose brutale,
implacable, éminemment scientifi que parce qu’elle est