Edouard-Denis BALDUS

Édouard Denis Baldus, photographer, was born on June 5, 1813 in Grünebach, Germany.

Trained as a painter, he moved to Paris in 1838, after a trip to the United States, to perfect his painting.

His first photographic experiences date from the end of the 1840s, when the calotype was imported into France. He exhibited at the 1847, 1848 and 1851 Salons.

Of Prussian origin, he became a naturalized French citizen in 1856 and was one of five artists selected by the Commission des monuments historiques (a government agency) to carry out heliographic missions, photographic surveys of architectural heritage. His photographs of landscapes and monuments, allow to witness the transformation of the landscape by modern engineering during the years 1850-1869. He photographed the whole of France, mainly its monuments but also the railway works of the time and also made the first reports, as in 1856, during the floods of the Rhone.

Édouard Denis Baldus died on December 22, 1889 in Arcueil.