The Port and City of Sète-Mediterranean (Port et Ville de Sète-Mediterranée)

Trained as an academic painter, Gustave Le Gray achieved numerous technical and compositional innovations in photography. He gained acclaim in London in 1856 for a series of large-scale, technically accomplished seascapes made on the Normandy coastline. This photograph belongs to a series made the following year in the Mediterranean coast city of Sète, where Le Gray was on assignment to document a new train station. He positioned himself on the jetty that separated the port from the sea to make this photograph of the two-stacked steamship Saïd leading other vessels at anchor in the harbor. Another version of the same scene, made from the city side of the harbor, was reproduced as an engraving and published in Le Monde illustré in May of 1857.