The mid-nineteenth century saw the simultaneous birth of couture, photography, and modern art. For women of the Italian aristocracy, as well as the aspiring bourgeoisie, the three arts provided a new world of spectatorship and self-satisfaction. Virginia Oldoini, Countess Castiglione, was a voracious client of both couture and photography, acquiring fashion from the new maisons de couture of Worth and Pingat.
Albumen silver print, from glass negative
Pierre-Louis Pierson (1822-1913)
In 1844 Pierre-Louis Pierson began operating a studio in Paris that specialized in hand-colored daguerreotypes. In 1855 he entered into a partnership with Léopold Ernest and Louis Frederic Mayer, who also ran a daguerreotype studio. The Mayers had been named "Photographers of His Majesty the Emperor" by Napoleon III the year before Pierson joined them. Although the studios remained at separate addresses, Pierson and the Mayers began to distribute their images under the joint title "Mayer et Pierson," and together they became the leading society photographers in Paris.
Pierson's 1861 photographs of the family and court of Napoleon III sold very well to the public. Pierson and Leopold Mayer soon opened another studio in Brussels, Belgium, and began photographing other European royalty. After Mayer's retirement in 1878, Pierson went into business with his son-in-law Gaston Braun, whose father was the photographer Adolphe Braun
Albumen is the clear 'white' of hen's eggs, and is used to hold the light sensitive salts used to make a print on the top of the paper surface. They can be regarded as a development of the Salted paper print, and there is some overlap between the two processes.
Albumen Prints
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