Gertrude Käsebier · 1905
Portrait of Rita de Acosta Lydig
- Year
- 1905
- Original process
- Platinum print
- Held at
- Library of Congress
Key facts
- Edition
- Signed and numbered limited edition
- Authenticity
- Official certificate of authenticity
- Chemistry
- Non-toxic process (Vision Picturale recipes)
- Year
- 1905
- Original held at
- Library of Congress
- Public domain
- Since 2005 (CPI L.123-1)
- Printer
- Maison Picturale — Paris 20e studio
- Lead time
- Hand-made · 4 to 8 weeks
Maison Picturale reinterpretation in platinum-palladium
About this work
Portrait of Rita de Acosta Lydig (1905) is Gertrude Käsebier's platinum-print portrait of the New York socialite, fashion patron and aesthete Rita de Acosta Lydig (1875-1929), one of the most photographed women of the Belle Époque and a celebrated client of the couturier Mariano Fortuny. The sitting belongs to Käsebier's society-portrait practice, which provided the commercial foundation that made her fine-art pictorialism economically viable: from her 1897 opening of the 273 Fifth Avenue studio, Käsebier's society clientele financed the experimental work — The Manger, The Heritage of Motherhood, the Sioux series of 1898 — for which she is now best known. The Lydig portrait shows Käsebier's command of glamour photography decades before the genre became codified by Edward Steichen and George Hoyningen-Huene at Condé Nast: long mid-tones, sculptural rendering of fabric, soft modelling of skin, a poise that anticipates the high-style fashion photography of the 1920s and 1930s. The print is held in the Library of Congress as part of the Käsebier-Turner archive. Made the same year as Käsebier's European trip and the Rodin Meudon series, it confirms 1905 as a peak year in her output and an inflection point in her international visibility. At Maison Picturale, the print is studied as a reference for society and fashion portraiture in noble metals and as a case study in the economics of pictorialism — the commercial portrait financing the artistic one. The Procédé Transposition transposes Käsebier's platinum process to non-toxic platine-palladium reformulated by Vision Picturale on cotton 640 g/m², preserving the silvery long scale and matt finish without lead or chromium.
Reference file : Library of Congress / 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.
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.
View the procédéHistory of the process
Le platinotype est inventé en 1873 par l'ingénieur britannique William Willis, qui dépose la même année le brevet du procédé sous le nom Platinotype Process. Willis fonde en 1879 la Platinotype Company, qui commercialise les papiers sensibilisés au platine en Europe pendant plusieurs décennies. Le palladium est introduit au début du XXe siècle comme variante économique, sans rien céder sur la qualité tonale.
Le platine-palladium devient rapidement le procédé de prédilection des maîtres de la photographie d'art. Alfred Stieglitz, Edward Weston, Alvin Langdon Coburn et Frederick H. Evans en font leur procédé signature, et leurs épreuves originales conservées à la Royal Photographic Society de Londres, à la George Eastman House de Rochester et au Metropolitan Museum of Art de New York témoignent encore aujourd'hui de la perfection tonale du platine. Stieglitz écrivait que le platine offrait une échelle de gris plus étendue que tout autre procédé.
Our approach
Chaque tirage platine-palladium réalisé à l'atelier 1 Passage Dagorno est une pièce unique en édition très limitée, destinée aux collectionneurs sérieux et aux institutions. Le coût des sels de platine et de palladium, métaux nobles dont les cours suivent ceux des marchés financiers, en fait notre procédé haut de gamme. Chaque épreuve est préparée, sensibilisée et développée à la main par nos artisans tireurs.
Notre papier aquarelle satiné 100 % coton 640 g/m² est particulièrement adapté au platine-palladium : sa fibre coton pure, sans azurants optiques ni additifs alcalins, permet aux sels métalliques de s'inscrire en profondeur dans le papier, et sa surface satinée révèle pleinement la tonalité chaude unique et l'échelle tonale exceptionnelle du procédé.
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.
