Feb 07, 2008 - Sale 2135

Sale 2135 - Lot 38

Price Realized: $ 10,800
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 7,000 - $ 10,000
MARCONI, GAUDENZIO (1841-1885 )
Album containing 199 photographs of nude women depicted as mythical figures and angels. Albumen prints, 5 1/4x4 inches (13.3x10.1 cm.), with an inventory number in the negative. Oblong folio, gilt-lettered cloth. 1870s
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Additional Details

Seguin, Naef, Marbot, et. al., After Daguerre: Masterworks of French Photography, p.37, fig.13, and pl.92-94

Das Aktfoto, 70-71 and 94.


A marvelous album of angels that features nubile young women (some with their male counterparts) sprouting wings and draped in flowing gossamer. More mature subjects are presented as goddesses, who are either holding a staff, perched atop a globe, or shown with a canine companion.


Marconi took his visual cues from the master French photographer of female nudes, Auguste Belloc, purchasing his studio and inventory. Marconi ultimately popularized the form by setting his beautiful subjects in mythological or biblical tableaux accessible to students of art and religion alike.


JPGs are available upon request.