Portret van Germaine Gallois before 1892

This is Nadar's portrait of Germaine Gallois, presented within a book—an object itself of great material interest. Consider the production of early photography, which, in its time, was as revolutionary as digital imaging is today. Photography changed portraiture from a largely handmade process available only to the wealthy, to a mechanically-reproduced image, theoretically accessible to all. The image itself, created by chemical reaction on coated glass and paper, speaks to the artist's knowledge of science, labor, and materials. This volume presents the image alongside a text titled "Progress and Applications of Photography," underscoring the societal shift that photography represented. Nadar’s elegant portrait, here caught between the craft of bookbinding and the industrialization of photography, invites us to reconsider distinctions between art, craft, and manufacture.