At Concarneau, Finistère 1874

Maxime Lalanne made this etching of Concarneau in Finistère, France, during the 19th century. Etchings like this one had a public role in the 19th century: they provided an accessible and reproducible format for disseminating views of places, or vedute. Here, Lalanne uses the etching needle to define a medieval port town and the figures that animate the foreground. Through its precision and detail, the image speaks to a social and cultural context interested in the faithful recording of places and customs. Concarneau is located in Brittany, a region that long held a distinctive cultural identity within France. Artists and writers flocked to Brittany in search of the picturesque. Here, Lalanne offers us a glimpse of the past mediated through the busy activities of a contemporary port. Careful art historical research is needed to reconstruct how images like this were made, distributed, and consumed. If we are to understand the politics of imagery, we have to appreciate the social conditions that shaped artistic production.