Nadar, a pseudonym for Gaspar Felix Tournachon, (1820-1910) was a French writer,  a caricaturist, a balloonist, a part time political activist, a photographer and a friend of painters, writers and intellectuals in Paris during the time of Napoleon lll. He is remembered as a photographer for the portraits he made of his great contemporaries.

The writer Alexander Dumas was Nadar's boyhood idol. Nadar's father had published Dumas's first novel and play, and a portrait of Dumas hung in young Nadar's room. The son of a French revolutionary general and a black mother, Dumas arrived in Paris from the provinces in 1823, poor and barely educated. Working as a clerk, he educated himself in French history and began to write. In 1829 he met with his first success; with credits including "The Three Musketeers" and "The Count of Monte Cristo", published in 1844 and 1845, respectively, his fame and popularity were assured.