The photograph of Girault de Prangey, Exhibition, Musée d'Orsay, Paris: 19 May-11 July 2021

The Frenchman Joseph-Philibert Girault de Prangey (1804-1892) has established himself amongst the leaders of photography early in his career. Painter and draftsman, archaeologist and architectural historian, expert and passionate about rare plants and birds, he is in fact one of the pioneers of the daguerreotype, a technique that he has mastered perfectly since 1841 and through which he has bequeathed us an invaluable work, comparable only to the one of the Englishman Ruskin, recently discovered.
Now including not less than 1000 slabs - but the number may increase given the halo of mystery that still surrounds his activity - this corpus was made mainly between 1842 and 1844, on the occasion of a classic trip to the Mediterranean basin, from Italy to Egypt, passing through Greece, Turkey, Syria, Lebanon, Jerusalem and Palestine.
The first monographic event organized in France around the photographic work of Girault de Prangey, the exhibition of the Musée d'Orsay aspires first of all to enhance this historically exceptional corpus, which is very original both technically and materially, at the same time underlining the aesthetic ambitions claimed beyond the initial documentary function.