Louis-Jean Delton (1807-1891)

FAZAN, RUSSIAN STALLION OFFERED BY THE EMPEROR OF RUSSIA TO EMPEROR NAPOLEON III, EXPOSITION UNIVERSELLE, 1867. Albumen print, flush mounted to period card, image size 135 x 195mm, card size 160 x 220, with ink inscription lower right recto [illegible].

Louis-Jean Delton was considered Paris' premier equestrian photographer in the mid-19th century, setting up his studio at 83 Avenue de l’Impératrice in 1861. In the mid-1880s, he began producing albums featuring portraits of notable horses and racers, often alongside their owners or jockeys. The present print depicts Fazan, a Russian stallion gifted to Napoleon III by the Russian Emperor on the occasion of the 1867 Exposition Universelle. A variant of this image, in which the horse's stance and the photographer's viewpoint differ slightly, was published in Delton's Album Hippique, and prints of the variant are held by the Getty Museum, Los Angeles (ref.4.XO.823.5.9) and the Philadelphia Museum of Art (ref.2001-62-1244(11)).