![Havent I shown you my new car yet?]()
Just a few days till the famous London to Brighton and a few days before we can see thousands and thousands of photos online about the very early cars. But it is curious to remind that photography was invented just in time to document the early stages of car technology and development. Without this very happy coincidence, our perspective of early car history would have been entirely different and possibly largely absent. Professional photographers like Jules Beau in France, Argent Archer in England and Nathan Lazarnick in the US were already present in the early years to record car races and other events like car shows. At the same time, photography became a real industry, because literally anything could be photographed: cities, villages, landscapes and of course people. It was the start of a new type of medium: the postcard.
Many companies were established to exploit these new possibilities commercially. A firm which one encounters regularly is Guilleminot, Boespflug & Cie. from Paris. This firm was established already in 1855 by Gustave Guilleminot to produce photographic glass plates and later photographic paper. After his death in 1893 his son René took over and was joined in 1898 by Boespflug, who had married René's sister. They even had their own logo, a horse head inside a horseshoe.
The photographed subjects were numerous, but we will concentrate now on a series of car photographs which come by regularly in postcard circles. On these photos, people were photographed in several cars the firm owned. The locations of these photos differ: partly they were taken in a courtyard (presumably behind their premises), partly outside in front of cafés, near fairs or just somewhere on a Parisian street. The example in the lead photo is one of their regular used cars. It looks like a Renault, but it is a Fouillaron of around 1901. Another regular is the 487-EE, a car which has a still unknown origin but likely is a modernized veteran. Rarer are photographs with the Lacoste & Battmann-like vehicle with license nr. 174-X (on the last photograph). All cars are clearly older cars, which had served their time and were undoubtedly second-hand bargains.
An important target group for these photos must have been people who couldn't afford a car and could pretend otherwise to their friends and relatives showing the photo. It was apparently a success and between 1905 and 1907 the firm photographed male and female groups, families and children in every imaginable combination in these cars. On all photographs, a number was written in white ink, because the photos had to be developed and printed, and could only be purchased later (a common system then and now!). To find this number is sometimes a real challenge! The highest number I've ever seen was close to 10,000, so I presume that they had reached their limit by then and had decided that it was enough …
Even nowadays every photo of this series is a little gem, showing in every aspect the attraction of the new phenomenon on wheels, still so distant and unattainable for the masses. The firm Guilleminot, Boespflug & Cie. survived until 1994, the beginning of digital photography.
Words and photos by Ariejan Bos
|
