Moulin de la Galette (Montmartre)

The invention of photography was announced to the world in France (by Joseph Nicéphore Niépce and his partner, Louis-Jacques-Mandé Daguerre) and in England (by William Henry Fox Talbot) in 1839. At the same time, however, Hippolyte Bayard was conducting his own photographic experiments. Now recognized as one of the inventors of photography, Bayard held the first photographic exhibition in the world (also in 1839), and continued to photograph and promote photography in France for several decades. This is one of a series of pictures Bayard made of the windmills of Montmartre, at the time still a village but soon to be swallowed into greater Paris. In the early 19th century this windmill housed a business selling galettes, a kind of French pastry. Later it comprised a legendary cabaret and was depicted in paintings by Renoir, Van Gogh, Lautrec, and others. Because of its heightened sensitivity to light, this early photograph must be kept under a shade while on view.