Gipsmodel voor beeldhouwwerk op het Palais du Louvre: "La Victoire" door Antoine-Louis Barye

Edouard Baldus created this photograph of Antoine-Louis Barye's plaster model for a sculpture on the Palais du Louvre. Baldus was one of the most important architectural photographers of the mid-nineteenth century. Here, Baldus documents Barye’s sculptural model of “La Victoire” which depicts a classical scene, complete with idealized figures and symbolic animals. Consider how “victory” is being expressed in the mid-19th century. Baldus worked in a time of burgeoning colonial expansion, and this image might evoke the complicated relationships between power, national identity, and artistic representation. Although the original sculpture was made by Barye, Baldus's photograph freezes a moment in time, influencing how subsequent generations would perceive the sculpture, and the concept of "Victory" itself. This photo asks us to consider who gets to define concepts like ‘victory,’ and whose stories are being told—or left out—in these grand, artistic pronouncements.