838
the fourth). Undoubtedly infl uenced by his father’s
service to Paris, Le Secq became a connoisseur of his
native city, particularly its architectural treasures, as
artist, antiquarian, and most notably, as photographer.
Le Secq began his artistic studies with the sculptor
James Pradier in 1835. In 1840, he entered the studio of
Paul Delaroche where he began painting genre scenes,
and in 1842 he exhibited his fi rst paintings at the Salon.
In 1845, Le Secq followed Delaroche to Rome and
returned to Paris in 1846. At Delaroche’s studio Le
Secq met fellow painter Charles Nègre. In 1848, with
the instruction of artist/photographer Gustave Le Gray
(also a student of Delaroche), Le Secq and Nègre began
to experiment with photographic processes. In this year
Le Secq married Marguerite-Fanély Palais.
Le Secq was one of many French photographers mak-
ing calotypes, a paper negative/positive process invented
by William Henry Fox Talbot in England in the 1830s. In
1850, Le Secq and Nègre began using Le Gray’s waxed
paper negative process which improved the translucency
of the paper negative by rubbing wax on the paper before
it was sensitized and exposed in the camera. Even when
his contemporaries began using glass negatives, Le Secq
continued making paper negatives. Le Secq’s fi rst use of
photography was to make quick preparatory sketches of
posed fi gures in genre subjects for paintings but soon he
began photographing architecture. By the time Le Secq,
along with Nègre, Le Gray and others, helped to found
the Société héliographique in 1851, the fi rst photographic
society to be established, he was considered one of the
best architectural photographers in France.
His fame as an architectural photographer led to Le
Secq’s inclusion in the Mission Héliographique, the fi rst
photographic survey of historical monuments in France.
The group was arranged in 1851 by the Commission des
Monuments Historiques, a group of French political anti-
quarians, architects, and archeologists. The Commission
felt it urgent to preserve France’s architectural heritage
by documenting medieval buildings and monuments
threatened by deterioration from neglect, as well as
industrialization and restoration. The Commission hired
fi ve established architectural photographers to document
fi ve provincial centers in France. Le Secq was assigned
the religious edifi ces of Champagne, Alsace, and Lor-
raine. Though the mission was never fully realized (due
to diffi culties in obtaining permanent prints) and only
300 paper negatives survive, the Mission provided Le
Secq with experience in the fi eld and an opportunity
to perfect his skills at photographing architecture. Fol-
lowing this fi rst commission, Le Secq documented the
sculpture of Strasbourg, Amiens, Reims, Chartres, and
various other churches around Paris.
Le Secq’s photographs demonstrate both his roots
in Salon painting and an interest in using the camera to
reach heights and vantage points previously unattain-
able. To make “Flying Buttresses, Reims Cathedral,”
1852, Le Secq climbed to a point where he could pho-
tograph the successive arches of the fl ying buttresses, a
vantage point that the ordinary visitor to the cathedral
would not be able to reach. By 1852, Le Secq had also
turned to landscape photography and photographed
stone quarries and woods around Montmirail. These
works show the infl uence of paintings by Corot, Rous-
seau, Dupré, and Diaz. The landscape photographs
were meant to be used as studies for artists. As in the
architectural photographs, Le Secq utilized the calotype
process’s potential for murky, moody effects to an ex-
treme by making long exposures, thus creating dramatic
compositions of deep shadow.
Between 1849 and 1853, Le Secq photographed old
monuments, buildings, and churches in various states of
disintegration, such as “Tour St. Jacques,” 1853, as well
as demolitions and various public works projects begun
by Jean-Jacques Berger, Prefect of the Seine. He also
photographed Notre Dame, the old Hotel-Dieu, Amiens,
and Chartres. His photographs of demolitions, such asLE SECQ, HENRI
Le Secq, Henri. Grandes fi gures au porche nord, cathédrale de
Char.
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Purchase, The Howard
Gilman Foundation and Harriette and Noel Levine Gifts,
Samuel J. Wagstaff Jr. Bequest, and Rogers Fund, 1990
(1990.1130) Image © The Metropolitan Museum of Art.