Clovis Hugues, the French poet and socialist deputy, sits for this carte de visite portrait by Nadar’s Paris studio at 51 Rue d’Anjou Saint-Honoré. Hugues gained early fame for his role in the Marseille Commune of 1871, which brought him four years’ imprisonment, before turning to a long career in national politics and Provençal poetry. The card carries Nadar’s gold medal imprint from the 1878 Exposition Universelle, placing the sitting after that date.

He appears in bust length, turned slightly from the camera, with a dense dark beard and a full head of loosely curling hair swept back from a high forehead. He wears a dark double-breasted coat over a high wing collar, a wide silk cravat tied in a loose knot at the throat. A facsimile signature reading “Clovis Hugues” is printed beneath the portrait alongside Nadar’s own.

Elected deputy for Marseille in 1881, Hugues became the sole socialist voice in the Chamber of Deputies, serving until 1889 and again for Paris from 1893 to 1906. Alongside his political career he won renown as a poet writing in both French and Provençal, receiving the Académie Française’s prize in 1900 for La Chanson de Jeanne d’Arc.

The reverse is inscribed in pencil, “Clovis Hugues / Poet, socialist, activist 1851-1907,” beneath Nadar’s printed studio imprint noting the Gold Medal of the 1878 Exposition Universelle and the address 51 Rue d’Anjou Saint-Honoré, with the stock notations “8/06/10,” “H.&F. Paris,” “Lobde,” and “Eb.”