Heinrich Kühn · 1889
Landschaft (Landscape)
- Year
- 1889
- Original process
- Gum bichromate on paper
- Held at
- Albertina Vienna
Key facts
- Edition
- Signed and numbered limited edition
- Authenticity
- Official certificate of authenticity
- Chemistry
- Non-toxic process (Vision Picturale recipes)
- Year
- 1889
- Original held at
- Albertina Vienna
- Public domain
- Since 2015 (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
Landschaft (Landscape, 1889) is an early monumental gum bichromate landscape measuring 54.5 by 73.3 cm, held by the Albertina Vienna. The sheer size of the print — exceptional for a dichromate-pigment image at the close of the 1880s — documents Dr. Heinrich Kühn's pioneering ambition to scale gum bichromate beyond the cabinet format into a medium capable of competing with painting at gallery scale, an argument that would only be fully realized by the international Pictorialist movement two decades later. Dr. Heinrich Kühn (1866-1944), Austrian-German pictorialist, trained as a physician before settling in Innsbruck in 1888, the year before this landscape was made; Landschaft thus stands at the threshold of his Tyrolean career. As leader of the German-Austrian wing of Pictorialism and a co-founder of the Wiener Kleeblatt (Vienna Trifolium) with Hans Watzek and Hugo Henneberg, Kühn pursued an obsessive multi-layer approach to gum bichromate, building up tonal range and color depth through successive pigment coats on a single substrate. He later invented the Platingummidruck (gum-over-platinum) process and was a close correspondent of Alfred Stieglitz, who published him in Camera Work pl. 18 (1905) and pl. 33 (1911), and Edward Steichen. Kühn was among the first European photographers to adopt the Lumière Autochrome in 1907. His prints are held at the Albertina Vienna, MoMA, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Städel Museum Frankfurt, and Galerie Maier Innsbruck. Process Transposition Maison Picturale: Kühn's large-format gum bichromate landscapes are transposed at the Maison Picturale Paris atelier via Aquaprint MP, the non-toxic Vision Picturale reformulation, which preserves the painterly mass of Landschaft without the historical dichromate hazard. Kühn entered the public domain in 2015.
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.
