Constant Puyo · 1909
Woman with white parasol
- Year
- 1909
- Original process
- Gum bichromate / pigment print
- Held at
- Domaine public — collection privée (passée en vente Sotheby's)
Key facts
- Edition
- Signed and numbered limited edition
- Authenticity
- Official certificate of authenticity
- Chemistry
- Non-toxic process (Vision Picturale recipes)
- Year
- 1909
- Original held at
- Domaine public — collection privée (passée en vente Sotheby's)
- Public domain
- Since 2004 (CPI L.123-1)
- Printer
- Maison Picturale — Paris 20e studio
- Lead time
- Hand-made · 4 to 8 weeks
Maison Picturale reinterpretation in gum bichromate
About this work
Woman with white parasol, 1909, is a late-period pictorialist gum bichromate (also referenced as a pigment print) by Constant Puyo (Émile Joachim Constant Puyo, 1857-1933), exemplifying the summer-light feminine portraiture that became his signature after he retired from the French artillery in 1902 with the rank of commandant. The image — a young woman shielded by a white parasol under high diffuse light — places Puyo in dialogue with the contemporary Impressionist painters of the same scene (Monet's parasoled women, Caillebotte's garden figures) but resolves the subject in photographic gum bichromate: the white parasol acts as a luminous reflector, dissolving the face into a soft-focus mask that the gum's brushable pigment converts into painterly mass. The work belongs to Puyo's mature decade (1900-1914), the period during which he co-signed Les Procédés d'art en photographie (1906) with Robert Demachy and Les Objectifs d'artiste (1906) with Jean Leclerc de Pulligny, formalising the soft-focus aesthetic and documenting the special pictorialist lenses they had designed for the painterly photographer. Puyo, made Chevalier de la Légion d'honneur in 1894 and president of the Photo-Club de Paris from 1921 to 1926, would withdraw to Morlaix in Brittany after 1914, ending his Paris-centred salon career. The print circulated in the public domain via private collections and a Sotheby's sale; comparable Puyo plates are held at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in the Stieglitz Collection (accession series 33.43.x) and at the Musée d'Orsay (PHO 1991 series). Maison Picturale reinterprets the parasol portrait as a gum bichromate print using the MP Aquaprint formula — Vision Picturale's reformulated non-toxic gum without dichromate — on 640 g/m² cotton paper, restoring the painterly summer luminosity of the 1909 original.
Reference file : Wikimedia Commons (Public Domain)
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-layer gum bichromate. Each pigment laid separately — VP reformulated recipe, no chromium VI.
MP procédé — reformulated non-toxic chemistry, signed by Tristan Sidem.
View the procédéHistory of the process
Watercolour gum (gumprint, gum bichromate print) is one of the most versatile and oldest photographic processes. Its principle was discovered by Mungo Ponton in 1839, who observed that paper soaked in potassium bichromate hardened under light. It was Alphonse Poitevin who, in 1855, had the idea of mixing watercolour pigment with sensitised gum arabic: by exposing this layer under a negative, the exposed areas harden and retain the pigment while unexposed areas dissolve during washing.
The gumprint enjoyed its golden age between 1890 and 1920, within the Pictorialist movement. Photographers such as Robert Demachy, Edward Steichen, and Gertrude Käsebier used it to create images halfway between photography and painting, asserting photography as a fine art in its own right. Each colour layer is applied, sensitised, and exposed individually — a four-colour print therefore requires a minimum of four passes.
Our approach
The gumprint made by Maison Picturale is an entirely handmade print where each colour layer is a unique pictorial gesture.
We work on 100% cotton satin watercolour paper at 640 g/m², capable of withstanding multiple watercolour passes without warping. In four-colour mode, each print requires four successive layers — cyan, magenta, yellow, and black — each individually sensitised, exposed, and developed. The result is an image with vibrant colours and a grain impossible to achieve with digital printing.
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.
