Maria CHAMBEFORT (1840-1893) Lot n° 16

Stephanie Poyet, age 7, c. 1850 Half-plate daguerreotype in original frame, photographer's label and handwritten label on back 14 x 10 cm (oval), 28 x 23 cm (frame) Originally from Mâcon, Marie Chambefort is one of the first French women daguerreotypists. A pioneer in the experimentation of the medium and moreover an itinerant, she represents a rare example of a woman daguerreotypist active in the 19th century. The young woman trained with her uncle François Perraud, a photographer who traveled in Europe and was probably a student of Daguerre. We find traces of Marie's first professional installation at the Hotel du Sauvage in Macon during the summer of 1857 where she offered travelers portraits "obtained in a few seconds". Marie's work as well as her personality and life choices intrigue researchers. In the 1990s, the historian Eugenia Parry Janis became interested in the portrait painter and presented her as a key figure in the world history of women photographers. Thomas Galifot, a curator and specialist in photography, has extensively studied and published on her life and work in relation to the social, societal and economic context of the time. In particular, he raises the question of the photographer's itinerancy in her early years: was it an imposed choice as a means of making herself known or was it her main mode of activity? At a time when a young woman is rarely independent and "authorized" to exercise a mobile activity. A way of life as a way of emancipation? This daguerreotype was used to illustrate the book "Women photographers" by Eugenia Parry Janis, edited by Constance Sullivan, 1990. Bibliography : " Professional women photographers and itinerancy in France in the 19th century : the case of Maria Chambefort " by Thomas Galifot, Photographica, no 2, April 2021, p. 70-88.