Dolmen, Cap del Puetch, Ariège, France

A British-born photographer, Taylor lived in Marseille and became a member of the Société Française de Photographie in 1860. Taking photographs in city parks and the surrounding countryside, as well as in Ariège and Seine-et-Oise, he often worked with the establishment G. Arosa et Cie in Saint-Cloud to produce his ink-based prints made from photographs according to the publisher’s unique process. This print is likely made from a shellac base, for Taylor wrote several articles for British and American photographic journals on a shellac printing process in 1866 and 1867. After printing, the images would be mounted onto a heavy card stock and sold to be collected in albums. Here, the subject, a dolmen, or Neolithic tomb, reflects 19th-century interest in distant history and early monuments.