Image: the public-domain reference file. Your print is a hand-made interpretation of it, produced at the studio in Platinum-palladium — its matter and tonality are its own.
Alphonse Poitevin · 1883
Posthumous Portrait of Alphonse Poitevin
- Year
- 1883
- Original process
- Reproduction (Bulletin SFP)
- Held at
- Société française de photographie
Key facts
- Edition
- Signed and numbered limited edition
- Authenticity
- Official certificate of authenticity
- Chemistry
- Non-toxic process (Vision Picturale recipes)
- Year
- 1883
- Original held at
- Société française de photographie
- Public domain
- Since 1953 (CPI L.123-1)
- Printer
- Maison Picturale — Paris 20e studio
- Lead time
- Hand-made · 3 to 5 weeks
Maison Picturale reinterpretation in platinum-palladium
About this work
Posthumous tribute portrait of Louis-Alphonse Poitevin (1819-1882) published in the Bulletin de la Société française de photographie in 1883, one year after his death — a printed homage by the institution that had awarded him its Duc de Luynes Prize in 1862 for his work on photolithography, and that conserves in its archives many of his foundational documents. The Société française de photographie, founded in Paris on 15 November 1854, was throughout the second half of the 19th century the leading learned society of photographic research in France and the body before which Poitevin had presented, in 1855, the experiments establishing the photosensitivity of pigmented colloids — the discovery from which sprang his three patents on gum bichromate, the carbon process and photolithography, all filed the same year. The Bulletin de la SFP, published continuously from 1855 onward, served both as scientific journal and as obituarist for the founders of the medium. This 1883 plate, today freely available on Wikimedia Commons from the Bulletin scans, fixes the canonical image of Poitevin transmitted by the photographic community of his time: chemist of the École Centrale (class of 1843), industrial director of the salt works of Dieuze, Montmorot and Gouhenans, mayor of Conflans-sur-Anille (1871-1878), Chevalier de la Légion d'honneur (24 January 1863). As a posthumous reproduction in a learned journal, the work does not lend itself to a direct Maison Picturale process transposition, but stands as a historical and biographical reference plate, free of copyright since 1953, accompanying the studio's interpretations of Poitevin's other plates and photolithographs.
Reference file : Bulletin SFP 1883 / Wikimedia Commons (Public Domain)
Procédé Transposition
Print like Alphonse Poitevin today — without the toxics.
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.
Noble metals — platinum and palladium — on 640 gsm cotton paper. The longest tonal range in all analog photography.
MP procédé — reformulated non-toxic chemistry, signed by Tristan Sidem and Raphaël Lebas de Lacour.
View the procédéHistory of the process
The platinotype was invented in 1873 by the British engineer William Willis, who patented the process that same year under the name Platinotype Process. In 1879 Willis founded the Platinotype Company, which sold platinum-sensitised papers across Europe for several decades. Palladium was introduced in the early twentieth century as an economical variant, giving nothing away on tonal quality.
Platinum-palladium quickly became the process of choice for the masters of fine-art photography. Alfred Stieglitz, Edward Weston, Alvin Langdon Coburn and Frederick H. Evans made it their signature process, and their original prints held at the Royal Photographic Society in London, at George Eastman House in Rochester and at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York still testify to platinum's tonal perfection. Stieglitz wrote that platinum offered a wider scale of greys than any other process.
Our approach
Every platinum-palladium print made at the studio at 1 passage Dagorno is a unique piece in a very limited edition, intended for serious collectors and institutions. The cost of platinum and palladium salts — noble metals whose prices follow the financial markets — makes this our premium process. Each print is prepared, sensitised and developed by hand by our master printers.
Our 640 gsm 100% cotton satin watercolour paper suits platinum-palladium particularly well: its pure cotton fibre, free of optical brighteners and alkaline additives, lets the metal salts embed deep in the paper, and its satin surface fully reveals the process's unique warm tonality and exceptional tonal scale.
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
Formats and prices
- ProcédéPlatinum-palladium
- Coquille44 × 56 cm200 €
- Jésus56 × 76 cm400 €
Firm prices: they follow from the procédé and the paper format, as on our Process pages. 100% cotton paper, 640 gsm, deckled edges. Which formats are offered depends on the resolution of the reference file we hold for this work.
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.
