Self-Portrait with Wife Ernestine in a Balloon Gondola

Nadar

National Gallery of Art

A mustachioed man and a woman, both with light skin, crowd in the basket of a hot air balloon in this vertical, sepia-toned photograph. To our left, the man wears a tall top hat and a dark coat and cravat. With his body angled slightly to our right, he holds a pair of binoculars at his waist as he looks down and off to the side to our left. On our right, the woman wears a plaid patterned shawl that wraps around her body and seems to cover her head. A bow tied under her chin is a little wider than her face, and the wide ends of the ribbons reach far down her chest. She looks at us. The profile and torso of a person is cropped by the right edge of the photograph. Building on that, we eventually realize that the basket hangs a few feet above the floor in front of what must be a painted backdrop in a studio. The left edge is blurred and a sliver showing other people, or perhaps another exposure, is visible.