Mlle Mourawieff dans Néméa 1863

Editor: So, this is Andr\u00e9-Adolphe-Eug\u00e8ne Disd\u00e9ri's "Mlle Mourawieff dans N\u00e9m\u00e9a," an albumen print from 1863. It's part of a photo album at the Met. There’s something almost dreamlike about it, with those multiple exposures… what do you see when you look at it? Curator: Oh, that multiplication... it’s like seeing echoes, memories swirling around her. I’m completely caught by the romanticism of it all! Don't you just want to be transported to that opera house? Notice how the single subject, likely a ballerina, is replicated several times, a narrative dance captured within the still frame. It's as if the photograph itself is pirouetting. Are we seeing the passage of time in one still image? It’s utterly seductive, the way it bends photography towards fantasy. Editor: Definitely seductive! It also feels stagey, even for a ballet photograph. The backdrop is clearly painted, and there's that ornate little column. Curator: Exactly! That constructed theatricality is very deliberate. It wasn't just about capturing reality, but crafting an idealized version of beauty, elegance and perhaps the exoticism of the subject. It reflects the prevailing Romantic sensibilities, with an embrace of emotion, imagination, and maybe a longing for an ancient ideal of beauty, but of course through a Victorian lens. Editor: It’s like she’s caught between worlds – performance and representation, ancient myth and modern technology. Curator: Beautifully put. And that tension, that beautiful contradiction, is precisely where the magic lies. We can be transported by photography into an imagined world, to consider something about beauty and identity, through art. Editor: I love that - transported through art and into a sense of self. Thanks, that really gave me something to think about.