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these are the most poetic. While tantalizingly real in
both weight and texture, Vallou’s reclining nude seems
nonetheless to fl oat in an indeterminate and dreamlike
space, a crescent moon in a starry sky.
In 1826 he showed at the Salon “Costumes des Prov-
inces Septentrionales des Pays-Bas.” He published in
1829 lithographs of “Types des Femmes,” Souvenirs of
an artist. In 1830 with Achille Deveria and Numas, Mau-
rin and Tessaert, he contributed to the compendium of
romantic erotica called Imagerie Galante (Paris, 1830),
which provocatively updated an erotic mode found in
18th-century engravings. The subjects were pictorial
versions of stock characters from popular novels and
plays. Issued through several publishers. In 1839 he
published the lithographs “Les Jeunes Femmes, Groupes
de Têtes.” He became interested in photography in 1842,
shortly after the new medium’s invention, as an aid to his
graphic work. His subjects included fashion, costume,
and daily life, as well as light erotica, sometimes pub-
lished in conjunction with other artists. In 1850 he began
to practice photography at 18 Rue Bleu, Paris (nudes,
portraits of actors). He fi xed prints with ammoniac after
the process of Humbert de Molard. He liked to retouch
his negatives. Durieu criticized him concerning this
procedure. By 1850 Vallou de Villeneuve had begun
to practice photography in his studio, primarily female
nudes and portraits of actors.
In 1851 he became member of the Société hé-
liographique. Between 1851 and 1855, Julien Vallou de
Villeneuve, made a series of small-scale photographs
of female nudes, which he marketed as models for
artists.
Around the symbolism photography art in the 19th
Century painters got already a rapid eye for the expres-
sive possibilities of photography. Photographers ogled
to the achievements of painted art. The photos mapped
the wealth of this interaction. Already as from the fi rst
steps in the 19th Century photography had an enrich-
ing but also ambiguous link with painting art. Their
respective histories were intertwined and revealed many
similarities. The mutual teamwork formed the scope of
the show, symbolism, as a result of the retrospective
Fernand Khnopff in the Royal Museum for Fine Art in
Brussels, Belgium.
In 1853-54 Vallou published a series of nude stud-
ies, Études d’après nature, which were sold as artists
models and to the general public. Several were used
for well-known works by Gustave Courbet. Vallou de
Villeneuve’s works are admired for their emotional
restraint, as well as for their masterful orchestration of
form. Gustave Courbet, Gustave Moreau and Eugène
Delacroix inspired themselves on photograph’s, which
they let make the Villeneuve, Henri Rupp and Eugène
Durieu by photographers such as Julien Vallou. Also the
school of Barbizon brought painters and photographers
closer to each other. Camille Corot and Théodore Rous-
seau, Eugène Cuvelier, Charles Famin and Paul Berthier
literally walked the same paths at the Fontainebleau.
Around the symbolism, the links between photography
and painting art exposed the photographic penchant of
symbolism in the painter by means of photographic
portraits, studies to nature, mises-en-scène and tableaux
vivants, and included as well was picturalism. Thanks to
photography, artists discovered a totally new manner to
capture reality. Vallou’s nudes have long been associated
with those of Gustave Courbet, who was known to haveVALLOU DE VILLENEUVE, JULIEN
de Villeneuve, Julien Vallou. Female
Nude, #1940. Reclining, with arm
raised.
The Metropolitan Museum of Art,
Purchase, Lila Acheson Wallace
Gift, 1993 (1993.69.1) Image © The
Metropolitan Museum of Art.