The Madame B Album c. 1870s

Curator: This peculiar work, dating back to the 1870s, is titled "The Madame B Album". It appears to be a collage that incorporates photographs. What springs to mind for you seeing it? Editor: Whimsy, I suppose, a strange little poem on paper. The portraits embedded in the butterfly wings give it a surreal, dreamlike quality. The colors are lovely. There is something melancholic about it too. Curator: The artist, Marie-Blanche Hennelle Fournier, employed photographic portraiture alongside drawing, pigment, and collage. We might see how domestic craft practices intersect with new photographic technologies in the late 19th century. Editor: Right. It is very handmade, artisanal—an antidote to the cold mechanics of the photographic process, in a way. Makes me wonder about Madame B. Was this her little project, or perhaps a gift? It feels deeply personal. Curator: It is interesting to consider that tension between mass production and individual creation. How could photography, itself a product of industrial processes, be integrated into individualized and subjective expressions? The choice of a butterfly is noteworthy, too. Editor: A visual metaphor, perhaps, of transformation or fleeting beauty. The portraits staring out from within transform the creature into a gallery of familiar faces or…souls even. Quite arresting when you think about it that way. Curator: Absolutely. It reframes the symbolic association of a butterfly emerging with portraiture and new practices of representing and, crucially, remembering oneself. The commodification of the photographic image is definitely at play here, coupled with practices of affective, sentimental display. Editor: A tiny theater of memory. What I initially took to be whimsical feels denser now, more carefully crafted. Something precious and strange held together in watercolor and glue. Curator: Yes, perhaps the very materiality and presentation offer possibilities that the original portraits would not have alone. Editor: A charming, haunting memento. One wonders at the stories embedded within this carefully assembled winged creature.