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of A.A.E. Disdéri and Mayer & Pierson as study tools
for his caricatures. Carjat established a solid reputation
as a caricaturist after spending extended periods of time
between 1855 and 1861 in the south of France in Lyon,
St. Etienne, Marseille, and Eaux de Bade. Many of his
caricatures were published in the Marseille newspaper
Phocéen as well as in the revived Diogène. Despite his
success, he was often in fi nancial trouble, consistently
losing his money at the roulettes.
Carjat returned to Paris in 1861 and on December
1, 1861 he published the fi rst issue of a weekly journal
called Le Boulevard. With a more literary formula than
Diogène, it included a Parisian column, an ongoing
story in installments, a musical column, and a gossip
column. The journal was in a folio format of eight pages
illustrated by two large portraits. Collaborators on Le
Boulevard included many of the luminaries of Parisian
culture including Charles Baudelaire, Gustave Flaubert,
Victor Hugo, Champfl eury, Jules Verne, Léon Claudel,
and Honoré Daumier. Le Boulevard challenged the
government’s tolerance for criticism, particularly when
it published extracts of Victor Hugo’s Les Misérables
between April 6 and July 6, 1862. The last issue came
out on June 14, 1863 covered in black, a symbol of
mourning. Carjat was fi nancially ruined by the demise
of Le Boulevard.
Around the same time that he founded Le Boulevard
Carjat also opened a photographic studio at 56, rue
Laffi tte where he was to remain until 1865. He had
previously apprenticed in Pierre Petit’s studio in his
branch in Stephanienbad and had practiced photography
in Baden. Focused entirely on portraiture, Carjat broke
with several established photographic practices of the
time. Firstly, he worked on his own without the aid of as-
sistants. He sought to show his subjects in natural poses
and did not use numerous props such as tables, columns,
ottomans, or prayer stools. He did make some exceptions
for women who he would often show leaning on a table
or seated in a chair, but with very few accessories. Carjat,
along with Nadar, was one of the fi rst photographers
to use collodion before the process became massively
commercialized. Producing cartes-de-visite and larger
format portraits, he stuck to a rigorous composition for
his photographs. The image would stop at the knees in
order to highlight the subject’s face and expression. The
sitter generally faced the camera directly adding to the
intensity of the image. Carjat’s various enterprises were
frequently interrelated. For example, he began advertis-
ing his photographs at special prices to subscribers of
Le Boulevard in its very fi rst issue.
Carjat chose not to photograph the bourgeoisie
which was a very powerful and willing market for pho-
tography. Rather, he photographed painters (Gustave
Courbet, Jean Baptiste Camille Corot), sculptors (David
D’Angers), poets (Charles Baudelaire, Paul Verlaine,
Arthur Rimbaud), writers, (Victor Hugo, Emile Zola))
politicians (Léon Gambetta, Jules Grévy), doctors, jour-
nalists, actors (Frédérick Lemaître, Rossini, Dubureau
fi ls) and actresses (Adélaide, Sarah Bernhardt), as well
as members of the demi-monde. Many of his subjects
were his friends who frequented his studio, a favorite
social gathering place known for its momentous parties.
A number of Carjat’s portraits were published in La
Galerie contemporaine, a publication that focused on
the most celebrated personalities of the time. Another
aspect of his body of work were a series of the Com-
munards of 1870 in their uniforms. Though Carjat does
not seem to have participated in the 1870 Commune,
he does appear to have aligned his sympathies with
the Communards, helping a number of them and their
families after the uprising.
Carjat enjoyed some public recognition through
the exhibition of his photographic work. He submitted
works to the Marseille Photographic Society exihibition
of 1861 as well as to the London 1862 International
Exhibition where he was awarded an honorable mention.
His work at the 1867 Paris Universal Exposition was
awarded a bronze medal. He also exhibited in London
in 1861, in Paris in 1863 and 1864, and in Berlin in
1865.
Like his journalistic endeavors his photographic
business had great ups and downs. His business at 56,
rue Laffi tte was dissolved on March 1, 1864 and re-
constituted on July 14, 1864. He was forced to declare
bankruptcy in June 1865 and sold the business. He
perservered nonetheless and set up new studios at 62,
rue Pigalle (formed in 1866 and dissolved in 1869) and
then at 10, rue Notre Dame de Lorette (from early 1870
until the late 1870s). Carjat continued to write articles
and poetry which were published in La Gazette de Paris,
Le Figaro, L’Evènement, and Le Nain jaune, among oth-
ers in the last decades of his life. He published a book
of poetry entitled Artiste et citoyen. He died in 1906. A
large body of his work was inherited by his daughter who
bequeathed it to a Mr. Lemary who sold it to a Mr. Roth
in 1923. Much of his work, the glass plate negatives, in
particular, have been lost or destroyed.
Carolyn PeterBiography
Etienne Carjat was born on 1 April 1828 in L’Ain in
the village of Fareins. The son of a concierge and an
employee at a silk factory, Carjat moved with his family
at age ten to Paris. His artistic education was comprised
of three years as an apprentice for industrial design-
ers of carpet and wallpaper under the direction of a
Mr. Henri at the Cartier silk factory where his mother
worked. As a young man Carjat took a great interest in
the theater often spending his Sundays frequenting the