Emperor Maximilian's Vest and Coat After his Execution.
Paris: Auguste Klein, [Ca. 1867]. Original, vintage photographs. Albumen silver print mounted on cardboard. Reproduction by André-Adolphe-Eugène Disdéri. Image dimensions: 55 x 88 mm; cardboard dimensions: 63 x 105 mm. Cardboards slightly dusted. One of the photographs with tiny damage towards the upper left corner with no effect on the subject. Overall in fine condition.
Two rare, original, vintage carte de visite photographs about Maximilian I of Mexico’s vest and coat after his execution in 1876.
Austrian Archduke Maximilian I (1832–1867) was appointed Emperor of Mexico by Napoleon III in 1864 and reigned for three years. When the French army withdrew from Mexico in 1867, he was captured by Benito Juarez’s republican troops and executed by firing squad on June 19 the same year. Although it was not allowed to photograph the actual execution of Maximilian I, his official court photographer, François Aubert (1829–1906) documented the circumstances and relics of the execution in a series of photographs, including the present images about the Emperor’s bullet-riddled vest and frock coat.
Aubert’s gruesome images of the politically charged relics were initially banned in Europe, nevertheless, they circulated widely as cartes-de-visite and became famous. His photographs also served as an important reference for Édouard Manet when creating his series of historical paintings on the subject, most notably the one entitled The Execution of Emperor Maximilian.
Aubert’s photographs are considered as a very early, if not the first examples of photojournalism in Mexico and are held in the collections of the Museum of Modern Art and the Metropolitan Museum in New York as well as in the Getty Research Institute.
Literature: Debroise, O: Mexican Suite. A History of Photography in Mexico. Austin: University of Texas Press. 2001.; Elderfield, J.: Manet and the Execution of Maximilian. New York: The Museum of Modern Art, 2006.
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Price: €15,000.00