The Bisson brothers learned photography from one of its inventors, Louis Daguerre, and ran a well-regarded portrait studio in Paris before specializing in architectural views in the 1850s. Their most ambitious project was an extensive series of buildings and monuments capitalizing on renewed popular interest in the past. In the early years of his tenure, as he focused on building up a collection of historical masters, Hugh Edwards acquired 21 plates from this album, including this detail of Chartres Cathedral’s columnar figures.