Le Sommeil, Thérésou

In the storerooms of the Petit Palais museum in Paris, Aëgerter happened upon 19th-century daguerreotypes by Léon Riesener, including a touching image of his sleeping daughter Thérèse. It inspired her to create a lithophane, a process discovered by the artist during her residency at the Manufacture de Sèvres.

The 6mm moulded large porcelain plate is traversed and illuminated by light, revealing the image as a negative of the photograph. The image in slight relief appears and disappears depending on the time of the day, reminiscent of the sleep cycle.

You can watch below an 8 min film about the process of Le Sommeil, Thérésou: ‘Laurence Aëgerter, artiste invitée à Sèvres – Manufacture et Musée nationaux’

This work was made on the occasion of the exhibition ‘Ici mieux qu’en face’ at the Musée du Petit Palais in Paris, in 2020-2021.
You can watch here a 10 min film, in which the artist and the curators talk about their favorite work.