Nudes on colored daguerreotypes

Félix-Jacques Moulin ~ Nude woman, colored daguerreotype, between ca. 1851-1854. Scanned from book. Retrieved from wikimedia commons — **Félix-Jacques Moulin ~** Nude woman, colored daguerreotype, between ca. 1851-1854. Scanned from book | src wikimedia

**Félix-Jacques Moulin ~** [Les baigneuses : étude de nus dans une composition picturale], 1851-55; daguerréotype coloriée | src BnF

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**Félix-Jacques Moulin ~** [Female nude standing with back to full-length mirror], 1851-53. Daguerreotype, hand-colored | src Google Arts

Félix-Jacques Antoine Moulin (1802 – 1875) was a French photographer.
In 1849, Moulin opened a photographer’s studio at 31 bis rue du Faubourg Montmartre and started producing daguerreotypes of young girls aged 14 to 16. In 1851, Moulin’s work was confiscated, and he was sentenced to one month imprisonment for the “obscene” character of his works, “so obscene that even to pronounce the titles would violate public morality” according to court records.
After his release, Moulin continued his activities more discreetly. He taught photography, sold photographic equipment, and had a backdoor installed to his studio to dodge further legal problems. His works gained esteem from critics.
In 1856, Moulin made a photographic trip to Algeria, with a tonne of equipment, backed and financed by the French government, which allowed it to gain benefit from the structures of colonialism. There, he met technical difficulties due to variations in humidity, work in the open, and the quality of water, but managed nonetheless to extensively document the benefit of French colonies in Northern Africa. | quoted from Google Arts & Culture, here

La photographie érotique

Anonyme, Académie, vers 1845, daguerréotype. From: Abigail Solomon-Godeau: «Reconsidérer la photographie érotique» | src l'œil de la photographie — Anonyme, Académie, vers 1845, daguerréotype. From: Abigail Solomon-Godeau: «Reconsidérer la photographie érotique» | src l’œil de la photographie

Anonyme, Nu, vers 1848, daguerréotype (stereo). From: Abigail Solomon-Godeau: «Reconsidérer la photographie érotique» | src l'œil de la photograp — Anonyme, Nu, vers 1848, daguerréotype (stereo). From: Abigail Solomon-Godeau: «Reconsidérer la photographie érotique» | src l’œil de la photographie

Two Women Embracing. Unknown French maker; about 1848; Daguerreotype, hand-colored. From: Abigail Solomon-Godeau: «Reconsidérer la photographie érotique» | src l'œil de la photographie — Two Women Embracing. Unknown French maker; about 1848; Daguerreotype, hand-colored. From: Abigail Solomon-Godeau: «Reconsidérer la photographie érotique» | src l’œil de la photographie

The title is intriguing: «Reconsidérer la photographie érotique». (“Reconsidering erotic photography”).
The text itself is brilliant and of great intelligence.

In this 1987 essay, historian Abigail Solomon-Godeau traces avenues for exploring a history of erotic and pornographic photographic production, a history hitherto repressed and absent from narratives. Thus opening the door to a feminist and revised history of the photographic medium, she shows how much this imagery has been abundant and present almost from the origins of photography. In “Reconsidering erotic photography”, Abigail Solomon-Godeau analyzes the ways in which naked bodies are presented in several photographic images from the 1840s-1850s, whether academic nudes or images intended for other types of visual consumption, and questions the specificity of photographic representation as opposed to other mediums. Supporting feminist theories, she raises the question of how these images are viewed, and the ambiguity of their designation, between eroticism and pornography. At the heart of this pioneering essay in the history of photography, she defends the need to write the history of these often set aside productions.

Reconsidérer la photographie érotique.
Notes pour un projet de sauvetage historique
Abigail Solomon-Godeau
Éléonore Challine (éd. et trad.),
Éditions de la Sorbonne, 2022
quoted from l’œil de la photographie

Nudes 1850s by Felix Moulin

Félix-Jacques-Antoine Moulin :: Nude, ca. 1850. Salted paper print from paper negative. | src The Rubel Collection (The Met) — **Félix-Jacques-Antoine Moulin ~** Nude, ca. 1850. Salted paper print from paper negative. | src The Rubel Collection at The Met

Female Nude, 1856 (Albumen silver print). Attributed to Félix-Jacques Moulin (French, 1802 – 1875)
From: Abigail Solomon-Godeau: «Reconsidérer la photographie érotique» | src ODLP ~ l’œil de la photographie

Standing Female Nudes, ca. 1850

Although Moulin was sentenced in 1851 to a month in jail for producing images that, according to court papers, were “so obscene that even to pronounce the titles . . . would be to commit an indecency,” this daguerreotype seems more allied to art than to erotica. Instead of the boudoir props and provocative poses typical of hand-colored pornographic daguerreotypes, Moulin depicted these two young women utterly at ease, as unselfconscious in their nudity as Botticelli’s Venus. [quoted from The Met]