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Beautés d’archive

The French Society of Photography holds an abyss of work that has been collected from donations since 1854, the date of its inauguration.

Those who are curious enough to venture into their collection are immediately surprised by what is in its inventory. The collection is sorted by author, dating back to 1854, listing all the photographers’ names. This classification differs from methods used elsewhere at the time, particularly in institutions where the subject of the image would determine how it was sorted.
The labels on each one of the boxes stashed away in the Society’s collection bear the traces of the names of the following photographers in the FSP collection: Bayard, Regnault, Le Gray, Aguado, Gimpel and Demachy.

In this treasure chest one of the boxes that was slightly hidden away has recently been found. The box ‘Beauties’ was discovered on shelf 5, in the 12th bay, section 3. It contained strange and disturbing pictures of unknown women. These images of forgotten women were gathered over the years by mostly male members and actors belonging to the Society. They recognized the images being of public interest in 1891.
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Luce Lebart