Edouard Baldus - Definition

Edouard-Denis Baldus (1815–1882) was a French landscape, architectural, and railway photographer in the mid-1800s.

Baldus was originally trained as a painter and had also worked as a draughtsman and lithographer before switching to photography in 1849. In 1851, he was commissioned for the Mission Héliographique by the Historic Monuments Commission of France to photograph historic buildings, bridges, and monuments. He was extremely well-known throughout France for his efforts in photography. One of his greatest assignments was to document the construction of the Louvre museum.

Baldus used wet and dry paper negatives as large as 10x14 inches in size. From these negatives, he made contact prints. In order to create a larger image, he put contact prints side by side to create a panoramic effect.

In 1882, Edouard Baldus passed away in Paris.

See his entry in Wikimedia Commons. 'http://commons.wikimedia.org'

Notable photographs

• The Chantilly Viaduct, 1855.