In 1900, critic Ludwig Schrank, the founder of the Photographische Korrespondenz, a journal reflecting the professional photographic community, weighed in with his thoughts on this photograph by René Le Begue:
“In a terrible, treeless, rocky gorge, there lies a beautiful, totally nude model, resting on a stone, just tumbled from the heights. (Since the artist is French, the model is female, naturally.) Her hair falls freely over the boulders, her left hand dangles like that of a corpse. Actually, a ghastly picture. However, René Le Bègue knew how to introduce a redeeming note: with her right hand, the accident victim appears to take, ever so delicately between thumb and forefinger, a pinch of snuff…Let us admire these amateurs, who travel so far to deserts and rocky wildernesses in order to practice their art.” 1.
1. Rolf H. Krauss: Die Kunst in der Photographie, the German Camera Work: Part 2: Texts in Abstract: History of Photography, Volume 11, Number 1, January-March 1987: p. 278