Another Impossible Task. Artist: Louis-Pierre-Théophile Dubois de Nehaut (French, active Belgium, 1799-1872). Dimensions: Image: 16.3 x 21.2 cm (6 7/16 x 8 3/8 in.)Sheet: 13 3/8 × 18 1/8 in. (34 × 46 cm). Date: 1854.Chevalier Dubois de Nehaut represents a type of amateur photographer of the 1850s whose work exemplifies some of the most striking technical and aesthetic advances achieved by the medium in its second decade. A judge at the magistrates' court in Lille, he left the bench and settled in Brussels in 1851, pursuing his interest in photography.This image, as well as nos. 68 and 69, is from an album of thirty-two plates that the photographer dedicated in 1856 to the widow of a friend. The subjects, all of personal significance to the photographer, include self-portraits, portraits of friends and their children, views of the immediate vicinity of his house, train stations, and studies of the zoological garden in Brussels. The images, often annotated with the photographer's humorou