EUGÈNE ATGET (1857-1927)

The term 'Arrowroot print' is often used for Atget prints that could more accurately be described generically as 'matte albumen' prints. Scientific testing at the Philadelphia Museum of Art has shown that rice starch, rather than arrowroot starch, was found in all of the matte albumen prints by Atget in their collection. Whether arrowroot or rice was used as sizing is of little importance as the end result is the same, a pleasing matte surface. This image, with the vendor's disembodied head poking out between the blurred magazine covers, appeals to the same surrealist sensibility that Man Ray and others brought to Atget's work in the 1920s and led to his discovery by generations of artists. Matte albumen Atget prints of excellent quality and provenance depicting intriguing subjects such as the present lot are very rare.