About

Julien Vallou de Villeneuve was a French painter, lithographer and photographer who studied under artist Jean-François Millet. He as a founding member of the Société française de photographie (S.F.P.).

With the advent of the invention of photography, Vallou de Villeneuve employed photography as a means to supplement his graphic work, producing toned salted paper prints and albumenized salt prints from paper negatives. Realist painter Gustave Courbet was introduced to de Vallou de Villeneuve’s photographs by fellow artist Alfred Bruyas, and also used de Villeneuve’s images as source material for his paintings. There are no known prints by de Villeneuve after 1855.