Trained as a draftsman and textile designer, Adolphe Braun took up the relatively new medium of photography in 1853 and soon produced an album of 300 large-format floral still lifes that were much admired at the 1855 World’s Fair in Paris. Intended neither as scientific botanical studies nor as works of art in their own right, Braun’s photographs were meant to serve as artistically composed models for wallpaper and fabric design. Like many early photographs created for practical purposes—documentation of historic architecture, industrial records, or portraiture, for instance—Braun’s still lifes are nonetheless now prized for their beauty and technical accomplishment.