About This Artwork

Adolphe Terris
French, 1820–1900

Sculptural Frieze by Cavelier, Minerva Surrounded by the Muses of the Arts, c. 1868

Cyanotype
27.5 x 37.5 cm
Mary and Leigh Block Endowment, 1998.24

Photography
Gallery 10

A founding member of the Société Marseillaise de Photographie, Adolphe Terris was commissioned over a nearly 20-year period beginning in the early 1860s to document the large-scale public construction projects that were modernizing the city of Marseilles. He photographed the medieval streets of the old city as well as the newer railroad tracks, canals, boulevards, and government buildings. A print such as this would have been used as a reference for an architect (cyanotypes, or blue prints, could be made relatively easily and quickly), who could show building sponsors different proposed ornaments. Terris's image of a plaster study by sculptor Pierre-Jules Cavelier reveals that even in a forward-looking building campaign, the preferred decoration harkened back to classical motifs.