1370
Henri-Antoine Boissonnas (1833–1889) active in
Geneva in the clock-making industry started a new busi-
ness in 1864–65, succeeding the photographer Auguste
Garcin (1816–?). First taking landscape and city views,
he specialized in children portraiture. After his death his
sons took over, Edmond-Victor (1862–1890) inventing
3Orthochromatic2 plates, for which he received a silver
medal in the Vienna photographic exhibition of 1882.
Fred (1858–1946), the most famous of the family, was
a successful businessman and a great artist at the same
time, creating refi ned studio portraits and impressive
tableaux vivants. He experienced with a large variety of
printing techniques and became one of the only interna-
tionally recognized Swiss Pictorialists. Since the 1860s,
the most important portrait atelier for the Lausanne
bourgeois society was run by the De Jongh family. After
working with Niepce de St-Victor in France, Alphonse
Dériaz (1827–1889) established himself in Morges in
the 1870s taking studio portraits and occasional indus-
trial views. His son Armand (1873–1932) opened a
business for postcards and alpine panoramas.
Early examples of Swiss landscape photography
are scarce: Durheim took a few pictures of the Bernese
Oberland as early as 1849, Samuel Heer even earlier,
but no trace of the latter’s pictures survive. However,
Swiss landscapes became well known through the work
of foreign photographers, artists, scientists, alpinists
and travelers like Adolphe Braun, Francis Frith, Wil-
liam England, Giorgio Sommer, who produced large
corpuses covering the whole country, or like Aimé
Civiale, F. Donkin, G. Roman, the Bisson brothers. who
focused on the Alps. Around 1860, it was Garcin from
Geneva who provided Swiss views for tourists. Johann
Adam Gabler (1833–1888) in Interlaken did the same
in alpine areas beginning in the 1860s just as Romedo
Guler (1836–1909) in Davos would do in the Grisons
a decade later.
Carl August Koch’s (1845–1897) alpine photographs
attracted attention in the National Exhibition of 1896
in Geneva.
Even if the Charnaux brothers took pictures in the
Alps, they are better known for the very broad selection
of views of Switzerland they offered in the 1870s and
1880s, thus anticipating the industrial ventures of the
fi rms Schroeder & Cie, Photochrom (later Photoglob
after the fusion with Schroeder in 1895) and Gebrüder
Wehrli, which merged into Photoglob in 1924. These
tree companies fl ooded the market with commercial
images of all areas of the country. Whereas the brothers
Wehrli produced only black and white pictures, Pho-
tochrom specialized in polychrome photolithographs
taken by its anonymous operators all over the world
and sold to an increasingly picture-hungry international
audience.
Sylvie Henguely
See also: Bisson, Louis-Auguste and Auguste-Rosali;
Braun, Adolphe; England, William; Niépce de Saint-
Victor, Claude Félix Abel; Sommer, Giorgio; Frith &
Co, Photoglob Zurich /Orell Fussli & Co; Itinerant
Photographers; Tourist Photography; Civiale, Aime;
Delessert, Edouard and Benjamin; Isenring, Johann
Baptist; Martens, Friedrich; and Rossier, Pierre.Further Reading
Im Licht der Dunkelkammer. Die Schweiz in Photographien des- Jahrhunderts aus der Sammlung Herzog, Basel: Christian
Merian Verlag, 1994.
La photographie en Suisse. 1840 à nos jours, Berne: Benteli,
René Perret, Frappante Aehnlichkeit. Pioniere der Schweizer
Photographie. Brugg: Bilder der Anfänge, BEA + Poly
Verlag, 1991.
Switzerland, History of Photography, Guest Editor Martin Gasser,
vol. 22, nr. 3, Autumn 198.
Du, June 1952, Nr. 6, 12. Jhg, Frühe schweizerische Photos
Industriebild. Der Wirtschaftsraum Ostschweiz in Fotografi en
von 1870 bis heute, Hrsg. Giorgio Wolfensberger und Urs
Stahel, Werd Verlag, Zürich 1994
Bréguet, Elisabeth. 100 ans de photographie chez les Vaudois
1839–1939, Lausanne: Payot, 1981.
Il Ticini i suoi fotografi. Fotografi e dal 1858 ad oggi, Berne:
Benteli, 1987.
Auer, Michèle. Catherine Santschi, Jean Gabriel Eynard. Au temps
du daguerréotype, Genève 1840–1860, Ides et Calendes,
Photoarchives 4, Paris: Neuchâtel, 1996.
——. Gilbert Coutaz, Samuel Heer. Au temps du daguerréotype,
Lausanne 1841–1860, Ides et Calendes, Photoarchives 9,
Paris: Neuchâtel.
——. Alain, Fleig, Paul Vionnet. Au temps du calotype en
Suisse romande, Ides et Calendes, Photoarchives 15, Paris:
Neuchâtel, 2000.
Marianne Blattner-Geissberger, Gysi. Pioniere der Fotografi e,
1843–1913, Baden: Hier + Jetzt, 2003.
Wider das Leugnen und Verstellen. Carl Durheims Fahndungs-
fotografi en von Heimatlosen 1852/53, Hrsg. von Martin
Gasser, Thomas Dominik Meier, Rolf Wolfensberger, Foto-
museum Winterthur und Offi zin Verlag, Zürich, 1998.
Basel. Archiv Höfl inger, Edition Schmid, Ennetbaden 1987 mit
Text von Bruno Thüring.
Girardin, Daniel; Anne Leresche, and André Schmid (1836–
1914), Lausanne: Musée de l’Elysée/Musée historique de
Lausanne, 1998.
La famille Deriaz. Five generations of Swiss Photographers,
Edition Stemmle, Schaffhausen 1988, with a preface by
Charles-Henri Favrod.
Boissonnas, Nicolas Bouvier. Une dynastie de photographes
1864–1983, Lausanne: Payot, 1983.
SZATHMARI, CAROL POPP DE
(1812–1887)
Romanian portrait photographerThe Romanian photographer Carol Popp de Szathmari
was born in Transylvania and moved to Bucharest by
the age of eighteen. He trained in art, and embarked