French, 1816 - c. 1879
A painter-engraver and lithographic artist in Paris, Marville began to photograph in 1851. Many of his calotype negatives were published in the albums of Blanquart-Evrard, beginning with Album Photographique de l'Artiste et de l'Amateur (1851). In 1852 he travelled to Algeria and in 1852-1853 made photographic expeditions in central France and Germany. In 1856 he recorded the baptism of the Prince Imperial in Notre Dame, Paris. In 1858 he photographed parks such as the Bois de Boulogne and old Paris for the French government. He took up collodion in 1860 and in 1861-1862 photographed drawings by Italian masters in Milan and Turin. By 1862 he was named as photographer to the Imperial Museum of the Louvre, to the Ville de Paris and to King Victor Emmanuel of Italy. He was commissioned to record the streets, monuments, and parks of the city both before and after the radical changes implemented by Napoleon III and Baron Haussmann.