Adolphe Braun · c. 1865-1875
The Sphinx and the Pyramids
- Year
- c. 1865-1875
- Original process
- Carbon transfer print
- Held at
- Museum of Fine Arts, Houston
Key facts
- Edition
- Signed and numbered limited edition
- Authenticity
- Official certificate of authenticity
- Chemistry
- Non-toxic process (Vision Picturale recipes)
- Year
- c. 1865-1875
- Original held at
- Museum of Fine Arts, Houston
- Public domain
- Since 1948 (CPI L.123-1)
- Printer
- Maison Picturale — Paris 20e studio
- Lead time
- Hand-made · 4 to 8 weeks
Maison Picturale reinterpretation in carbon transfer
About this work
Carbon print (49.5 × 41.1 cm) of the Sphinx and the pyramids on the Giza plateau, drawn from the Egyptian campaign of Jean Adolphe Braun (1812-1877), the Alsatian photographer-industrialist who founded the Braun studio at Dornach in the 1850s and turned it into a full industrial photographic enterprise by 1860. The Egyptian images were produced in coordination with the milieu of Auguste Mariette, founder of the Egyptian Antiquities Service, whose excavation programme drew international photographic missions to the Nile valley during the 1860s and 1870s. Braun's large-format carbon plates were marketed both as scientific records of the antiquities and as luxury album material for the European bourgeoisie, in direct competition with the albumen views of Frith, Bonfils and Beato. By this date, Braun had secured a licence to the Swan carbon transfer process (1864) and become the first European industrialiser of the procedure, employing up to 200 staff at Dornach to supply permanent carbon reproductions to the Louvre, the Vatican and the British Museum. Holdings of the Egyptian corpus are dispersed between the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the J. Paul Getty Museum, the Library of Congress, the Cleveland Museum of Art and the Musée Unterlinden in Colmar (principal Braun studio archive). Procédé Transposition Maison Picturale: this Giza view is reinterpreted as a direct-monochrome charbon print using the non-toxic chemistry reformulated by Vision Picturale, with pigmented gelatin in Noir Musée or Couleur Profonde tissues transferred onto 640 g/m² cotton paper — the direct contemporary equivalent of the carbon transfer Braun industrialised, preserving its monumental scale and archival permanence without the dichromate hazards of the Swan-Braun workflow.
Reference file : Wikimedia Commons / MFA Houston / Google Art Project
Procédé Transposition
Each Maison Picturale print is a material reinterpretation of the image. Three readings of the same work — the original, its closest transposition, and a creative transposition into another procédé.
Multi-tone carbon transfer — the most permanent material in all of photography. Contemporary reinvention of the 1855 Poitevin procédé.
MP procédé — reformulated non-toxic chemistry, signed by Tristan Sidem.
View the procédéHistory of the process
Le procédé charbon est inventé en 1864 par Joseph Wilson Swan, chimiste et inventeur britannique également connu pour ses travaux sur la lampe à incandescence. Il présente le procédé devant la Royal Photographic Society de Londres la même année, breveté sous le nom de Carbon Process. Le principe : une gélatine pigmentée durcie par exposition UV à travers un négatif, puis transférée sur un papier final.
Très rapidement, le charbon devient le procédé de référence des éditeurs photographiques sérieux. Les héliographes des frères Lumière à Lyon, l'Autotype Company à Londres et la maison Braun à Dornach en font leur procédé industriel pour la reproduction d'œuvres d'art destinées aux musées. Les épreuves charbon de la fin XIXe conservées au Musée d'Orsay, à la George Eastman House de Rochester et au Metropolitan Museum of Art présentent encore aujourd'hui leur densité maximale intacte.
Our approach
Le tirage charbon Maison Picturale est une pièce unique réalisée à la main par les artisans tireurs de l'atelier 1 Passage Dagorno, Tristan Sidem et Raphaël Lebas de Lacour. Chaque épreuve charbon demande plusieurs jours de travail : préparation de la gélatine pigmentée, exposition UV, transfert sur papier final, séchage contrôlé. C'est un procédé strictement muséal, destiné aux collectionneurs sérieux et aux institutions.
Notre papier aquarelle satiné 100 % coton 640 g/m² est particulièrement adapté au charbon : son grammage soutient le transfert de gélatine pigmentée sans déformation, et sa surface satinée révèle pleinement le léger bas-relief signature du procédé en lumière rasante. Ce papier de conservation, sans azurants optiques, garantit la pérennité plurisééculaire de l'œuvre.
Inside our studio
1 Passage Dagorno, Paris 20e. Each print is hand-crafted by Tristan Sidem and Raphaël Lebas de Lacour, using Vision Picturale's reformulated non-toxic chemistry. Limited edition, signed and numbered.
Commission this print
- Hand-printed and signed by Tristan Sidem & Raphaël Lebas de Lacour
- Reformulated non-toxic chemistry (Vision Picturale recipes)
- Limited edition, numbered, certificate of authenticity
- 1 Passage Dagorno studio, Paris 20e
- Delivery 3 to 5 weeks · ships worldwide from France
Available formats
- 30 × 40 cmFrom 280€
- 40 × 50 cmFrom 420€
- 50 × 70 cmFrom 680€
- 70 × 100 cmFrom 1180€
- Custom sizeFrom 1850€
Indicative pricing — the exact rate depends on the chosen procédé, support and finish.
Contemporary print after a work in the public domain (CPI L.123-1, 70 years post-mortem). Hand-crafted reinterpretation by Maison Picturale's master printers — this is not an original vintage by the master. The mention 'after [Master]' is systematic on the print and on the certificate of authenticity.
