Gezicht op Château Bélair-Monange in Saint-Émilion, Frankrijk before 1867

This photogravure of Château Bélair-Monange in Saint-Émilion, France, was made by Alfred Danflou, though the date is unknown. We see an image that comes out of a very specific time and place in the history of photography, and in the history of French culture. The image is part of a book on Grand Cru vineyards, and the choice of photogravure is significant. It was a process seen as superior to other forms of photographic reproduction because it emulated the look and feel of older forms of image making such as etching or engraving. So this new technology is being used to show something old, a site of aristocratic luxury, but through a lens that is designed to make it seem established and traditional. We might ask, is this an attempt to give the new medium of photography more status by associating it with traditional printmaking? To better understand the image we would need to know more about the book it comes from, who published it, who it was for, and what other images it contained. Examining these contextual details helps us understand the status that photography was trying to achieve at this time.