Joseph Auguste Belloc (1800-1867) began his career as a painter of miniatures and watercolors. Belloc's first photographic studio was mentioned in 1851. Belloc became involved with the wet collodion development. A technique that he named Archerotype, after its inventor. Also the wax coating proces was improved by him.
Belloc is most known for his nude studies and erotic photographs.
In 1857, following an initial denunciation, Auguste Belloc was fined one hundred francs for "publication of unauthorized photographs and offense to public morality."
After his dead Belloc's studio and archive was acquired by Gaudenzio Marconi. [Marion Perceval]

This nice salt print is a good example of Belloc's photography. The composition is clearly painterly, in the tradition of an "Odalisque". His background as a painter is noticeable in this photograph. Artist studies also made the nude topic a little more acceptable to society.
The painting "Jeune Femme endormie" (ca. 1755) attributed to F. Boucher has strong similarities in subject and composition with this photograph by Belloc. [L'Art du Nu au XIXe siècle, le photography et son modèle, 1997 p. 58]

The used studio props can be found in several of his nude studies. Print with small traces of use (by an artist?) and age. Upper left corner of the mount is missing. The salt print is complete, see second image.

salt print ca. 15,3 X 18,6 cm
original mount ca. 15,8 x 19 cm (uneven trimmed)

Provenance: collection Gérard Lévy.