In the Studio of Bayard. Hippolyte Bayard, photographer (French, 1801 - 1887) about 1845 Hippolyte Bayard is one of the earliest photographers to explore self-portraiture using a camera. The Getty Museum’s collection includes seven of Bayard’s self-portraits (see , , ).\* While Bayard is not present in this image, it too can be considered a self-portrait of sorts as it offers the viewer a window onto his artistic world. The seemingly casual composition shows a make-shift photographic studio with wood doors leaning up against a brick wall to form the principa
In the Studio of Bayard. Hippolyte Bayard, photographer (French, 1801 - 1887) about 1845 Hippolyte Bayard is one of the earliest photographers to explore self-portraiture using a camera. The Getty Museum’s collection includes seven of Bayard’s self-portraits (see , , ).\* While Bayard is not present in this image, it too can be considered a self-portrait of sorts as it offers the viewer a window onto his artistic world. The seemingly casual composition shows a make-shift photographic studio with wood doors leaning up against a brick wall to form the principal back wall. The floor is rough; it isn’t clear whether it is made of tile, wood, or simply dirt. Bayard featured the tools of his trade—glass bottles filled with chemicals, a beaker, a funnel, a dark canvas backdrop, and a light curtain or coverlet as well as some of his favorite subjects—three plaster casts and a porcelain vase. The Société française de photographie (SFP) collection in Paris has two versions of this image; one of them is hand-colored. The overpainting with watercolor heightens the various patterns and adds colors that the photographic process was unable to capture (see and ).\n\nMany of these same props can be found in a number of Bayard’s photographs. (see and ). The vase with its elaborate floral design as well as the small figure with arms extended, the coverlet, backdrop, and bench are integral parts of Bayard’s most famous self-portrait, Le Noyé [The Drowned Man], now housed at the SFP.\n\n \n\*Four of the Getty’s Bayard self-portraits are part of a portfolio printed in 1965 by M. Gassmann and Son from Bayard’s original negatives that ar
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