sconosciuto - Le Nu Artistique

This is an image of an artistic female nude printed in phototype (phototypy), dating from between 1902 and 1907, and part of the work "Le nu estetique," produced by the painter, photographer, and illustrator and published by E. Bernard & Cie.
This work, sold with monthly publication, was therefore a beautiful, today famous, collection of high‑quality artistic nudes, with professional models, and the phototypes that comprise it are today highly sought after by collectors.
Phototypy, sometimes also called Collotypie, presents the images as if printed on photographic paper, without any halftone, with very deep blacks; the color sits between albumen print and carbon print, dominated by an intense sepia tint, with warm brown/sepia tones and a very soft transition in skin tones, which perfectly imitates nineteenth‑century chemical photography.
This was a manual process that was very long and costly, and was later abandoned in favor of lighter and easier printing processes, but certainly less rich in artistic impact.
This plate, on cardboard, measures about 32×25 cm; the aesthetic condition is more than acceptable, with a very slight yellowing of the light‑colored frame area relative to the image itself.