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Bisson Frères

Chartres Cathedral, West Facade; Royal Portal, Central Bay

1857, printed 1857
Albumen print, from the album "Reproductions photographiques des plus beaux types d’architecture et de sculpture"
45.5 × 36.5 cm (17.9 × 14.4 in)

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In the collection of Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago · as of July 2026

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FROM THE ART INSTITUTE OF CHICAGO’S CATALOG

The Bisson brothers learned photography from one of its inventors, Louis Daguerre, and ran a well-regarded portrait studio in Paris before specializing in architectural views in the 1850s. Their most ambitious project was an extensive series of buildings and monuments capitalizing on renewed popular interest in the past. In the early years of his tenure, as he focused on building up a collection of historical masters, Hugh Edwards acquired 21 plates from this album, including this detail of Chartres Cathedral’s columnar figures.

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