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  • The Madame B Album (c 1870s) Collection of the Art Institute of Chicago. The “Madame B Album” was not made for public viewing, though the artist spared no care on its design. The book is a leatherbound volume of some hundred photocollages. Victorians enjoyed their photos in myriad ways — trading, posing, and arranging, inscribing winking captions, customizing rings and lockets. Collagists treated the photo irreligiously, as raw material for artmaking, something to be used, and used up. By educated guess, the name eventually attached to the “Madame B Album” was Marie-Blanche Hennelle Fournier, known as “Blanche” and married to a career diplomat, Hughes-Marie Henri Fournier. She lost interest in her album, and left many collages unfinished. Surely, she never imagined it acquired by a museum, and paged by strangers all over the world. From Public Domain Review, Sasha Archibald, Sep 6, 2023

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