Le Document Photographique. Serie II. 10 Epreuves Directes 18 x 24. Nudes.

Paris: Librairie Documentaire, 1906. First edition of this tasteful gathering of original nude photographs for academics, sculptors, painters and engravers (ahem). The work was issued in ten parts (or 'serie') between 1906 - 1907, each with 10 albumen photographs. The present selection consists of 'Serie II' complete, with three additional images. Each photograph measures 7 3/4 x 4 3/4 inches and is mounted, landscape and portrait formatting, to gray boards measuring 12 x 8 1/2 inches. The whole housed in the original printed gray envelope with an tipped-on actual photograph of a a woman's face. The typography and the poses all speak of a deep art nouveau influence. Very scarce. The only copy recorded is at the Bibliotheque National.This copy has three additional albumen photographs. It is likely that a new subscriber started at Serie II and the publisher was kind enough to include a few remaining photographs from Serie I. Amdedee Vignola is today chiefly remembered for his publication L'Humanite Feminine published in 1907. It is claimed by some that the photograph Two Tuareg Girls he published in L'Humanite Feminine was used as the source for Matisse's sculpture Two Negresses of 1908. Vignola started off as a cartoonist but by the turn of the century was very involved in shadow plays, the most famous of which was his Le Sphinx (1894). In 1898 Vignola did the set designs for his friend Leon Durocher's Helene for the inaugural opening of the Pompadour Theatre. After the year 1900, Amadee Vignola took on the mantle of presenting soft porn to the French marker under the guise of art and he issued a number of works in this vein. By 1906, albumen photographs were no long the status quo but it is likely that Vignola issued his risque works in that medium as they have an air of antiquity.