Nadar (Gaspard-Felix Tournachon, French, 1820-1910)
Gioacchino Antonio Rossini, 1856
Lightly albumenized salted paper print, 9 x 7 5/8 inches
Purchase in memory of Alice R. Frank with funds contributed by
the Board of Trustees of the Chrysler Museum of Art and the Art Purchase Fund

On March 5, 1856, Leon Escudier wrote to the photographer Nadar, "I come from Rossini's...he will be free tomorrow from one-thirty to two...Do your utmost to make certain that we shall be alone. I have assured him that you will make a portrait worthy of him. Accordingly, prepare everything so that he won't have to wait." At the sitting, Nadar exposed two negatives. One image documented the physical characteristics of an old man. The other, on view here and nearly identical in pose, revealed the mischievous wit of that master of musical composition, Gioacchino Rossini (1792-1868), one of the most significant and influential composers of opera in the 19th century. His compositions include The Barber of Seville, Othello, Cinderella, and, of course, the grand opera, William Tell, written in 1829. By the time Rossini had this portrait made, Nadar was at the apogee of his artistic powers and becoming a celebrity in his own right.

Nadar lived his early adult life as a Bohemian earning a meager living by working as a journalist and caricaturist. In 1854, he began working with the new invention of photography. His artistic training and skill aided him greatly in defining the virgin medium of portrait photography. Soon anyone who was someone in Paris had to have his or her portrait made by Nadar. Nadar's prices were at the top of the market and as was the custom of the time, he hired others to perform the routine photographing of the walk-in customers. But, Nadar himself, photographed the authors, actors, artists, composers, and celebrities. Not merely a photographer to these notables, Nadar was included among their social circle.

Forever interested in innovation, Nadar used his studio as a site for many remarkable events. In 1874, it served as the gallery for the first exhibition by a group of artists advocating a new style of painting known as Impressionism. Nadar's studio was also the meeting place for The Society for the Encouragement of Aerial Locomotion by Heavier than Air Machines. The group's secretary was the author Jules Verne who was so enthralled by Nadar's adventurousness that the photographer became the protagonist in Verne's science fiction novel, From the Earth to the Moon. Nadar navigated an enormous balloon named The Giant and was the first to make aerial photographs of Paris in 1868. Always pushing the limits in every direction, Nadar, in 1861, was the first to use electric lights to make photographs in the catacombs and sewers of Paris. Nadar was indeed a remarkable man and was undoubtedly the finest portrait photographer in mid-19th-century France.


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