Afgietsel van een kapiteel in de Basilique des Saints Nazaire et Celse te Carcassonne c. 1875 - 1900

This photograph by Adolphe Giraudon captures a plaster cast of a column capital from the Basilique des Saints Nazaire et Celse in Carcassonne. Giraudon was active in a period when photography was transforming the study of art and architecture. This image freezes in time not the original medieval stone carving, but a copy, highlighting questions around authenticity, reproduction, and access to cultural heritage. The act of casting and photographing the capital makes it available for scrutiny and dissemination in ways the original, fixed in place, could never be. Consider the role of the basilica itself, a site of religious and social power throughout centuries. By isolating this fragment, Giraudon invites us to contemplate the visual language of power embedded in the architecture and how it reflects the hierarchies of its time. The photograph is not just a document but an interpretation, framing the past for a modern audience.