A variant of this image published as photogravure in Photo-Club de Paris / 1896, Pl. XXIV.
The critic Ludwig Schrank, the founder of the Photographische Korrespondenz, a journal reflecting the professional photographic community, weighed in with his thoughts in 1900 on this photograph by René Le Begue: "In a terrible, treeless, rocky gorge, there lies a beautiful, totally nude model, resting on a stone, just tumbled from the heights. (Since the artist is French, the model is female, naturally.) Her hair falls freely over the boulders, her left hand dangles like that of a corpse. Actually, a ghastly picture. However, René Le BÞgue knew how to introduce a redeeming note: with her right hand, the accident victim appears to take, ever so delicately between thumb and forefinger, a pinch of snuff…Let us admire these amateurs, who travel so far to deserts and rocky wildernesses in order to practice their art." (Krauss Texts in Abstract p.278).
Heliographed (Plate) & Printed by: Georg Buxenstein & Comp. (Berlin)
