[Fête du Trône/Boutique de foire (Street Fair Booth)]

Atop a fancifully painted table, a large chair and a small chair stand silently empty, pushed as far as possible apart from each other and precariously close to the table's edges. Placed in front of each chair and facing each other as if in confrontation are high-topped shoes scaled to the would-be occupants of the seats. Signs with "1�" entrance fees and photographs of two men of dramatically unequal size hang suspended around the chairs, seeming to float in space. A lone light bulb hovers above the entire scene, punctuating the blackness with its distinctive silhouette.

What is this surreal sideshow still life of presence and absence? Taken just inside the sideshow tent, the photograph is a close-up view of a street-fair display advertising the attraction of Armand the Giant and the smallest man in the world. As Eugène Atget has isolated the arrangement, it is a curiously haunting advertisement that is more disturbing than inviting. He also photographed the fair booth in a sidelong view that shows the tent's fake exterior.