DUMAS (père), Alexandre (1802-1870)

DUMAS (père), Alexandre (1802-1870)

Original photograph, period albumen print, with autograph inscription « A. Dumas »
N.p.n.d [after 1860], c.d.v format (9,8 x 5,5 cm)
Glued on cardboard in the photographer’s credit (10,4 x 6,1 cm)
Very light stains and spots

Scarce autographed portrait by the author of The Three Musketeers

On the back of the print, Alexandre Dumas writes in his own hand this long and affectionate message :
« Ma chère petite Augustine as-tu une robe blanche – as-tu une robe bleue, as-tu un manteau brodé dont tu ne te serres plus,
donne-moi tout cela pour la petite amie que tu as vue chez moi l’autre jour
à toi
A. Dumas »

The writer is here captured in his maturity, around 1860. With his thick frizzy hair turning white, he appears dressed in a black suit and a waistcoat to which the chain of his pocket watch is attached. His pose contrasts with her shirt collar carelessly pulled up on the right side of his neck and giving him an artist’s look.

A student of Eugène Disdéri, Pierre Petit (1831-1909), nicknamed “Collodion the hairy”, set up his studio in 1858 on rue Cadet. A total of six portraits of Alexandre Dumas by the photographer, later illustrating Charles Chincholle’s work: Alexandre Dumas aujourd’hui, published in 1869. This inset portrait, one of the most famous known of the writer, appears on the opposite page of the title page of the book.