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Most cards bear Marville's embossed stamp. Charles Marville, the pseudonym of Charles François Bossu (1813 - 1879), worked as an illustrator before taking up photography around 1850. He mainly photographed architecture, landscapes and the urban environment. His first important body of work — a series of photographs of old Paris — was commissioned in 1864 by the Parisian government agency on historic works (under the aegis of Baron Georges-Eugène Haussmann, who designed the urban plan for Paris). For this project, Marville made photographs of the narrow streets and crumbling buildings of the premodern city at the very moment they were slated for demolition. Known as the "Album du Vieux Paris," the complete series of photographs is held by the Musée Carnavalet, Paris. Marville expanded his practice by focusing on two areas: reproductions of artworks (including a significant number focused on the masterworks of the French painter Jean-Dominique Ingres); and photographs of Parisian facades for use by professional architects.