Description

RARE PHOTOGRAPHIC SELF-PORTRAIT BY ZOLA.

Émile Zola and Jane Charpentier - daughter of the publisher - on the Médan estate preparing a bouquet to decorate the sarcophagus fountain brought back from Italy in December 1894 and placed at the entrance to the Charpentier pavilion.

Zola had captured two other shots of Jane Charpentier alone, completing the bouquet, the glass plate negatives of which, acquired by the Médiathèque du patrimoine et de la photographie (MPP), can be consulted online.

Although he worked with some of the greatest photographers of his time, such as Nadar and Étienne Carjat, Émile Zola did not really take an interest in photography until he was 48. The writer, who had just completed Les Rougon-Macquart, bought a number of cameras and developed his own photographs in the laboratories he set up in his various residences. After a haphazard start, Zola quickly developed a passion for this art form, which he practised intensively for the last eight years of his life.

Our print comes from the former collection of the writer's grandson, Dr François Émile-Zola, which was dispersed in December 2017. The corresponding glass plate negative seems to have disappeared as it is not digitised in the MMP's holdings.

The print is presented in an elegant frame with anti-reflective, anti-UV glass.