The French photographer Laure Albin-Guillot (1879-1962) published this image as Plate IV in an album of microphotographs entitled Micrographie Décorative (1931). She called it ‘Corne de sabot de cheval’ (‘horn of a horsehoof’).

Albin-Guillot played a central role in the development of modern commercial photography in Paris during the 1920s and 1930s. Her volume of microphotographs illustrating the hidden structures of organic materials was very successful. The standard edition was printed in photogravure (a high-quality photomechanical printing process, in which the image is printed in ink from an etched printing plate). This, however, is the author’s own copy. It is printed in pigments by the Fresson process on coloured papers. (This is a colour pigment process used to print colour photographs in the 1930s and later.) The publication offered the patterns of nature as inspiration for modern designers. Albin-Guillot is said to have contributed decorative screens based on this series to the luxury liner SS Normandie, which was launched in 1935.