Collage van miniatuurportretten van Franse auteurs 1854 - 1889

André-Adolphe-Eugène Disdéri created this photographic collage of French authors sometime in the mid-19th century. The rise of photography in France was intertwined with a growing interest in celebrity, and this image is a fascinating example of the way photography could be used to construct and disseminate cultural authority. The image gathers together likenesses of dozens of authors, implicitly placing them within a single cultural project, or even a single 'team.' It's striking to notice how the vast majority of these figures are men. This is partly a reflection of who had access to institutions of literary production at the time, but it also speaks to the ways photography itself participated in consolidating male authority. To properly understand this image, we might turn to publications from the period or explore the archives of institutions like the Académie Française. This helps us to understand the complex ways that photography was used to promote certain social values.