Gezicht op het Gros-Horloge in Rouen by N.C.

Gezicht op het Gros-Horloge in Rouen before 1883

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print, photography, albumen-print

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print

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landscape

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photography

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cityscape

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albumen-print

Dimensions: height 221 mm, width 168 mm

Copyright: Rijks Museum: Open Domain

This photogravure of the Gros-Horloge in Rouen was printed as part of the ‘Le Nord Contemporain’ journal. We don’t know when exactly this journal was produced, or anything about the photographer. However, the very existence of this image in this form speaks to a particular moment in French history. In the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, photography was gaining traction as a tool for documentation, preservation and civic pride. In France, the Commission des Monuments Historiques was founded to survey and protect sites of national and historical importance. It's likely that this image was commissioned and produced to celebrate France's architectural heritage, which was of course, a very political project that continues today. Photogravures like this allowed for mass reproduction and circulation of images, thus making them a very powerful way to influence public perceptions of national identity. To understand this work fully we would need to consider the politics of heritage in late nineteenth-century France, which we can study through archival sources and museum records. This in turn helps us understand the meaning and function of the image.

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