Gustave le Gray, 1820-1884

Gustave Le Gray's life was as romantic as any novel. A young painter in Rome, then a fashionable portrait photographer in Paris, Le Gray received commissions from Napoléon III, and astonished viewers with his painterly landscapes and ravishing seascapes. Facing bankruptcy, he fled Paris with Alexandre Dumas to Palermo, traveled to the Middle East, and finally settled in Egypt, where he became drawing master to the ruler's children and continued to make photographs until his death in 1884.