Album of photographs of Mexico and Habana

[Mexico - Havana, Cuba] Briquet, A. & uncredited professional photographers.

(ca.1880-90). Oblong folio, (ca. 270 x 360 mm; photographs 205 x 24 mm, 160 x 210 mm, and a few 130 x 160 mm). 40 albumen photographs of Mexico and Havana, all mounted on white card leaves with German manuscript titles in black ink underneath, those of Mexico with printed titles in English and Spanish underneath on thin paper, several photographs comprising name, date, or numbers added within the negative. Contemporary blind-stamped and gilt purple cloth, with gilt title on front, all edges gilt.

Very fine, large original photographs with views of Mexico by Abel Briquet (1833-1926), a French photographer and owner of a studio in Paris, operating from the 1850s onwards.

 

Abel Briquet was one of the first modern commercial photographers in Mexico. The date that he first began working in Mexico is uncertain, it is believed that he began his Mexican photography career in the 1870s. Briquet received a commission in 1876 to photograph the Mexican National Railway between Veracruz and Mexico City, and was funded through an 1883 commission from the Campagnie Maritime Transatlantique to photograph Mexican ports. His work additionally included a series of cityscape and landscape views; photographs of flora and fauna; "typical" scenes; views of precolumbian, colonial, and modern buildings and monuments.

 

Briquet prepared a series of commemorative albums ‘Vistas Mexicanas‘, between 1880 to ca. 1895. 21 Photographs in this album by him are titled: 'Vistas, Tipos', or 'Antiguedades, Mexicanas', and some have the text within the plate: 'Propiedad depositada Febrero 6, 1896'. There are 8 photograph views of Mexico City, 3 photographs of antiques in the Mexico Museum, views of the Castle of Chapultec, Guadalupe Village, the Village of Amega-Mega, 3 views of Vera Cruz, one of the village and canal Yxtacalco, and portraits of a rural guard and of country people. Further present are 9 fine professional photographs of Havana, Cuba, some with English text underneath within the plate: a large three-part panorama of Havana from across the bay, 3 views of the city, a view of Morro Castle, the General's Palace, the Cathedral, Columbus's tomb, and 2 interior views of the cigar factories of Mr. Upmann. 

 

Hermann Dietrich Upmann (1816-1894) was a banker, who loved Cuban cigars so much that he moved to Havana in 1844, set up a bank, started a cigar factory and created the H. Upmann brand. The bank closed in the 1920s but the Upmann cigars are produced to this day. One of Upmanns's cigars, the now discontinued 'Petit Upmann' (also known as Demi Tasse) was the favourite cigar of US President John F. Kennedy. - A very fine copy of a fine album.

 

Debroise, Olivier. Mexican suite, A history of photography in Mexico, 2001, pp. 70-82; cf. Getty Research Institute.

Mexico & Habana

$9,000.00