George Sand

This portrait belongs to one of the most characteristic publishing ventures of the late nineteenth century: La Galerie contemporaine, published from 1876 to 1884, which brought together 242 illustrated biographies with 410 photographs, 241 of them reproduced in photoglyptie by the Goupil & Cie firm. This new photomechanical process enjoyed enormous success for thirty years in the press and publishing, thanks to its stable printing, capacity for large-scale distribution, and much lower cost than silver prints.

George Sand is the first woman to be published in the Galerie Contemporaine.

The portrait reproduces one of the celebrated negatives taken by Nadar in March 1864: a series of eight portraits of the novelist made that month. The good lady of Nohant did not care for her own appearance and trusted only Nadar to sit for, who spent long hours photographing her until the image satisfied her: “The proofs of my photograph at Nadar’s have not yet turned out very well, I am going back tomorrow…,” she wrote to her son Maurice on 8 March 1864.

These now-famous photographs opened a long series. Nadar, who had always admired the novelist, had placed her at the head of his Panthéon Nadar (1854) and had inscribed a book to her, Quand j’étais étudiant (1856): “À madame George Sand, enthousiasme fervent et profond respect.” Sand later became the godmother of his son Paul.

A precious print inscribed by George Sand, who died in the very year of this publication, on 8 June 1876, so that signed portraits are extremely rare, Sand having had few opportunities to handle them herself.

Only one other inscribed portrait from the Nadar series is known, in the small cabinet-card format (inscribed to Charles-Édouard de Vasson), along with a few other prints in the same card format, simply signed.