Collection of Three Naval Photos, the Earliest Photographs Taken in Saint Pierre and Miquelon.
[Paris?]: [Furne et Tournier?], ca.1857–1859. Original, vintage, black and white albumen prints. The panorama photo captioned on the verso “Vue de la rade de St. Pierre, [?]”. Paper size (2 oval and a panorama format): ca. 340 × 265 mm and 460 × 190 mm; image size: ca. 205 ×155 mm and 410 × 110 mm. Occasional spotting and light stains on the papers, light stains on the panorama photo, otherwise in fine condition. A collection of Paul-Émile Miot’s three naval photographs, a series of the first pictures taken on the islands of Saint Pierre and Miquelon the French overseas collectivity near Newfoundland.
The panorama photo shows the bay or the barachois of Saint-Pierre, with a great number of sailing ships, fishing boats, and a few buildings on the land, while the two slightly differing oval images show the aviso Ardent, the ship on which Miot served on this naval expedition to Newfoundland.
Paul-Émile Miot (1829–1900) was a pioneering French photographer and naval officer who produced some of the earliest known photographs of the east coast of Canada and Newfoundland. Miot was born in Trinidad and studied at the Naval Academy in Paris between 1843 and 1849. His interest in photography may date from 1855, the time he served as a naval officer in the Crimean War, by an encounter with French photographers recording the war on film. In 1857, prepared with a camera and equipment, Miot sailed to Newfoundland on the board of the Ardent, a naval expedition that resulted not just in his earliest known photographs, but some of the earliest photographs of the region, and the first photos taken on the islands of Saint-Pierre-et-Michelon. Part of Miot’s photographs from the Newfoundland expedition was printed in Paris by Furne et Tournier, others were used as the basis of engravings for illustrated travel journals of the time. In the 1860s Miot completed a four years tour of duty in Mexico and Martinique and between 1868 and 1871 he participated in a circumnavigation of South America, some pictures produced during these voyages also survived. (Hannavy, 2008)
Literature: Hannavy, J (2008). Miot, Paul-Emile (1827–1900) French photographer and hydrographer. In: Hannavy J. Encyclopedia of Nineteenth-Century Photography. New York: Routledge; 2008. pp. 932–3.
Price: €8,000.00