Edouard Baldus, les albums du Chemin de fer du Nord (E.B. and the Chemin du Nord Photographic Albums)

It has until now been generally held that the "Chemin de fer du
Nord. Ligne de Paris à Boulogne. Album de vues photographiques"
was commissioned by the great banker and industrialist of the
Second Empire, James de Rothschild from Edouard-Denis Baldus,
one of the pioneers of photography, and was presented to Queen
Victoria on the occasion of her state visit to Paris in 1855.
Although this photographic essay appears to anticipate the
thematic and aesthetic concerns of the modernists in easel-
painting in the course of the following 20 years, Baldus's work
has never been the subject of any serious study. The author
examines the different versions of the work and proposes a new
set of dates for most of the plates together with the inclusion
of the work of some of Baldus's contemporaries. The proposed
re-arrangement and new dates for the plates suggest that
received opinion about Baldus and the albums need to be
questioned. (Magazine's Summary)