The Gilman Paper Company collection is an archive of original photographic prints and negatives, and it was donated to the

Metropolitan Museum of Art The Metropolitan Museum of Art, colloquially referred to as the Met, is an Encyclopedic museum, encyclopedic art museum in New York City. By floor area, it is the List of largest museums, third-largest museum in the world and the List of larg ...

. The collection was formed over the course of two decades (roughly 1977–1997) by Howard Gilman (1924–1998), chairman of the

Gilman Paper Company The Gilman Paper Company was an American paper producer founded by Isaac Gilman in the 1880s in the village of Fitzdale, Vermont, which would later be renamed Gilman, Vermont. History Gilman Paper Company's founder, Isaac Gilman, emigrated from Ukr ...

Collection

The collection before it was donated to the

included a series of photographs of

Virginia Oldoini, Countess of Castiglione Virginia Oldoini Rapallini, Countess of Castiglione (23 March 1837 – 28 November 1899), better known as La Castiglione, was an Italian aristocrat who achieved notoriety as a mistress of Emperor Napoleon III of France. She was also a significan ...

taken in the 1890s. Virginia Elisabetta Luisa Antonietta Teresa Maria Oldoini received the title Contessa of Castiglione after her marriage to Count Francesco Verasis Asinari of Castigliole d’Asti and Castiglione Tinella. The Contessa of Castiglione commissioned photographer, Pierre-Louis Pierson of Mayer and Pierson, the official photographers of the Imperial Court of Napoleon III, to take the photographs.

Publication

A bound folio of the collection was published as ''Photographs from the Collection of the Gilman Paper Company'' by The White Oak Press, 1985. The edition was limited to 1200 copies. The images were curated by Pierre Apraxine and the plates were made by master printer and photographer Richard Benson. The curated images in ''Photographs from the Collection of the Gilman Paper Company'' consist of iconic images from the era of daguerreotypes to 1960's images by Robert Frank and Diane Arbus. Richard Benson's print work for the publication is described as "the magisterial ''Photographs from the Collection of the Gilman Paper Company'' (1985), are the apex of black-and-white, offset lithography presswork."

References

External links

Gilman Collection to Met
Photographic collections Photo archives Collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art {{photo-stub