Arc de Triomphe de l'Etoile, Paris

c. 1860s

Édouard Baldus

(French, 1813–1889)

Culture

France, 19th century

Medium

albumen print from collodion negative

Measurements

Image: 21.5 x 28.2 cm (8 7/16 x 11 1/8 in.); Paper: 21.5 x 28.2 cm (8 7/16 x 11 1/8 in.); Mounted: 32.6 x 43.5 cm (12 13/16 x 17 1/8 in.)

Credit Line

Severance and Greta Millikin Purchase Fund 2022.16

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Location

230 Photography

Did You Know?

Completed in 1836, the Arc is dedicated to the armies of the French Revolution and the Second Empire and has gained additional symbolic force with each war fought by the French.

Description

For three decades starting in 1854, Paris was a construction site as Baron Haussmann replaced the crooked streets and crumbling buildings of medieval Paris with a modern city. The cobblestones in the foreground were for paving the newly expanded set of broad avenues that radiated from the Arc, part of Baron Haussmann’s urban renewal plans. Exposure times for film in the 1860s were usually too long to capture people in the street, but a man—perhaps the paver—paused long enough to leave his “ghost” to the left of the cobblestones.