Two (2) whole-plate daguerreotypes. Framed and matted in matching modern archival linen-textured presentation moldings. Pau, France: Adolphe Moreau the elder, 1841. 

Provenance: The Maillet Daguerreotype Collection (Christie's, Lot 35, June 2025). 

This expansive panoramic daguerreian composition captures the historic city of Pau nestled along the Gave de Pau in southwestern France, looking across the river plain toward the elevated bluffs of the city skyline. Visible across the two sequential exposures are the monumental medieval towers and Renaissance pavilions of the historic Château de Pau (birthplace of King Henry IV), adjacent church steeples, civic masonry facades, bridges, and the terraced embankments ascending toward the Pyrenean foothills.

Both plates retain their rare contemporary system of orientation and visual analysis — small paper labels numbered "1" and "2" are affixed in the upper right corners to indicate sequence, while horizontal numbered paper reference strips (numbered 1 through 8 on Plate 2, and 5 through 13 on Plate 1) are laid across the lower foregrounds, keyed to identify specific architectural monuments and topographic features along the urban horizon.

Given the early 1841 date of the panorama, scholarship attributes the creation of these plates directly to Adolphe Moreau the elder (1800-1859), who, possessing both ample capital and close ties to the Parisian avant-garde, took up the camera as an amateur practitioner during the initial fever of "daguerreotypomania." His son, Adolphe Moreau the younger (1827-1882), would have been just 14 years old at the time of exposure. While it remains possible that Moreau the elder commissioned an early unrecorded itinerant operator to document the vista before adding the meticulous reference keys himself, surviving evidence strongly links the work to his direct personal circle and collection.

Multi-plate outdoor whole-plate panoramas dating to 1841 are virtually non-existent outside institutional archives, representing premier treasures from the dawn of photography.

[Daguerreotype, Whole-Plate, Adolphe Moreau, Pau, France, Bearn, Chateau de Pau, Henry IV, Panorama, Multi-Plate, French Daguerreotype, Landscape Photography, Architectural Photography, Musee d'Orsay, Louvre, Early Photography, 1841, 19th Century Photography]

Fair to good condition, consistent with early, primitive French outdoor whole-plate exposures. The silvered plates retain substantial detail across the architectural midtones, exhibiting characteristic peripheral oxidation, surface tarnish, faint sky solarization, and scattered handling marks beneath the glass mounts. The modern presentation frames and double mats are clean and structurally sound.