Avignon (Flood of 1856) (Avignon [Inondation de 1856])

Acclaimed in his day for architectural photographs and images of the changing French landscape, Édouard Baldus produced several significant commissions for the French government. In June 1856, unprecedented floods in the Rhône Valley destroyed entire sections of Lyon, Avignon, and other towns that dated to Roman times and left tens of thousands homeless. Sent by the government to record the devastation, Baldus returned after eight days with twenty-five negatives that revealed nature’s fury in quietly dramatic images. This print is one segment of a six-part panorama, photographed on the banks of the Rhône in Avignon, which originally measured over seven feet in total length. Ernest Lacan, the well regarded editor of the photography journal La lumière, made particular note of the panorama, arguing that in an already remarkable career Baldus had only now arrived “at a perfection so complete.