The Work of Art and Its Reproduction (Photography at the Mus?e DO

Art and its Photographic Reproduction presents a selection of photographs, ranging from daguerreotypes to auto chromes, from the collection of the Musée d'Orsay, Paris.

Despite early photography's supposed qualities, many difficulties remained, especially in the reproduction of paintings: the lighting of the work while the shots were being taken, the ability to reproduce a large work in a homogeneous fashion and, above all, the problem of color which photography failed to reproduce. Yet many artists sought to have their work photographed: Ingres, for example, had daguerreotypes made of several of his paintings; Courbet also tried to have all his works photographed and even considered selling reproductions of his paintings at his private exhibition in 1855. Alongside these individual experiences, in the early 1850s, there were commercial attempts to distribute art works through photographic reproduction and the Louvre appointed its first official photographer in December 1883.

The results are including in this compact book which brings together photographs of paintings, sculptures and objets d'art and tries to show the essential role of the photographer, from 1850, in the distribution and knowledge of art works, and his close involvement in developing the history of taste

Dominique de Font-Reaulx is a curator of photography at the Musee d'Orsay and a lecturer at the Ecole du Louvre. JoÎlle Bolloch, archivist at the Musée d'Orsay , curated the exhibition War Photography, in 2004. She is the author of The Eiffel Towerin the same collection.

JoÎlle Bolloch was involved with the 1997 exhibition 'The Photographer and his Model' at the BibliothËque nationale de France, and curated the exhibition French Daguerreotypes, a Photographic Object held at the MusÈe d'Orsay in 2003. Her publications include Etudes d'aprËs nature, 2003, La Vague de Courbet, 2004, and Dans l'atelier, 2005.

Dominique de Font-Reauix is a curator at the Musee d'Orsay and head of the photography section. She teaches at the Ecole du Louvre.