[Female Nude]

Since the beginning of art and in every medium, depicting the human body has been among the artist’s greatest challenges and supreme achievements. Particularly in France, where Victorian notions of propriety held less sway than in England and the United States, and where life drawing was a central part of artistic training, photographs proved to be a cheap and easy substitute for the live model. While serving painters and sculptors, many 19th-century photographic nudes were also intended as works of art in their own right. With its exceptionally beautiful pose and lighting, this daguerreotype almost certainly falls into that category.