Marie-Alexandre Alophe (1812-1883) Photographic fantasies. Collection of subjects, paintings and scenes of Bohemian life composed and executed in nature photography by Monsieur Alophe, painter. Morning prayer. Rosine and Tabareau. The eve of the wedding. The separation. The neighbor. Reverie. The sister of Saint-Vincent-de-Paul. Glory and pot-au-feu. Asnières. Le mois de Marie. From the author, Paris, c. 1858. Portfolio in-folio (41 x 29 cm) titled on the first cover, composed of ten (10) albumen prints, from glass negatives, mounted on cardboard. Photographer's signature in the negatives. Titles and photographer's credit on mounts. Average size of prints: 21 x 16 cm Originally a lithographer, Marie-Alexandre Alophe orchestrated his shots to give them a pictorial aspect. In 1858, he deposited his Fantaisies Photographiques with the Bibliothèque Impériale, and that same year, his prints were praised in La Lumière: "M. Alophe has just imagined a new and very good application of photography to genre compositions (...) We cannot give a more accurate idea of M. Alophe's photographs, than by saying that they resemble the very fine drawings that a Mieris or a Gérard Doov (sic) would make".