Gustave Le Gray, Painter and Photographer

Preview: written before the show opened

The picture Orsay leads this show with is a painting. In 1853 Le Gray hung a portrait of his wife, Palmira Leonardi, at the Salon: she is 30, in black mourning dress, four years after the couple lost two daughters. It is one of the very few paintings by him known to survive.

Le Gray trained in Paul Delaroche's studio and kept composing like a painter once he took up the camera. For his seascapes he printed the sea from one negative and the clouds from another, because the emulsions of the day couldn't hold both. So the storm sky in front of you, pressing down on a flat sea, is a montage. Several recent acquisitions, works nobody knew existed until they came up for sale, will be shown for the first time.

It's in room 8c on level 0, covered by the €16 timed museum ticket (€12 on Thursday evenings, open to 9:45pm; free for under-18s). Reception is under renovation until summer 2028, so check access conditions first.