The artistry of Napoleon Sarony
Oct 23rd, 2015 by bachmann
Napoleon Sarony (1821 – 1896) was a famous New York photographer and lithographer whose output was both prodigious and imaginative. Today, he is mostly remembered as a portrait photographer and particularly for his original portraits of literary and cultural figures from the late-19th-century, including such icons as Mark Twain, Walt Whitman, Oscar Wilde, Peter Ilich Tchaikovsky, and Sarah Bernhardt. In addition to his artistic and technical skills, he was also a clever and prosperous businessman, being one of the first photographers to start paying celebrities to pose for him and then securing the rights to sell their photos for his own profit. In fact, he was the first to successfully defend a photographer’s right to claim copyright protection for his own photographic work, eventually winning a controversial U.S. Supreme Court decision. Sarony was also one of New York’s favorite eccentrics of the 19th century, typically seen strutting around town in a full hussars uniform. He was easily recognized for his ostentatious mustache and goatee and uncanny resemblance to Emperor Napoleon III.
According to Tchaikovsky:
“I never came across such a droll fellow. He is a parody of Napoleon III. He turned me round and round while he looked for the best side of my face. Then he developed rather a tedious theory of the best side of the face. Finally I was photographed in every conceivable position, during which the old man entertained me with all kinds of mechanical toys.”
Sarony was appreciated for his dedication to his craft, using inventive and dynamic backgrounds and posing his subjects with more naturalism and spontaneity than his contemporaries. He was quoted as saying “a picture requires the use of all the art the photographer commands. It must be taken at the moment the subject is unconscious, and at his best.”
Sarony’s celebrated photographs overshadow his work as lithographer. However, he was equally talented with that medium as well, producing lithographs for noted publishers such as Nathaniel Currier. He contributed his own creative lithographic work to accompany a new compilation of the Grimm brothers, entitled “The Fairy Ring”, in 1849.
A collection of Sarony’s photographic work held at Harvard can be searched and viewed below:
- Description:
- The fairy ring :a new collection of popular tales for 1849. New York : E. Kearny, 1849.
- Persistent Link:
- http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:FHCL:1997483
- Repository:
- Widener Library
- Institution:
- Harvard University
Hummm, I think Ben Kingsley (the actor) look just like him. :>)