Steps between two houses

A side street of steps leads from a wider road, street signed '23 rue de Boston Poste', flanked by houses, the steps lead steeply up a hill. The right side of the street is in the shade with shadows of chimneys reaching across to the walls of buildings on the opposite side.
Fading particularly to the top and left edges of the print. Dark retouching on the lower left corner indicated the original depth of tone. All corners are cut.

Calvert Jones was one of the first to learn of W.H.F. Talbot's photographic discoveries of the 1830s through Talbot's friends and relations who lived near to Jones in South Wales. Subsequently, Jones became one of the few Britons to produce a substantial body of calotypes in Britain and abroad. His work stands out in the early development of photography because of his ability to fuse his technical skill with the influence of his training as a watercolorist.

In 1853, Jones moved to Belgium and it is likely that he photographed in Boulogne at the time of a chanel crossing from Newhaven. Like his photographs in Bristol, he chose to record the harbour and the old maritime area of the town. This photograph captures a street of steps leading steeply up from the Napoleon Basin between a row of fisherman's cottages. .

La rue du Mâchicoulis is a well known street of steps in the heart of the old maritime quarter of Boulogne. The buildings that line the street were fishermen's cottages.

PH.102-1983