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Maunoury (Eugène ) album
2022.R.15
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Contributing Institution:
Special Collections
Title: Eugène Maunoury album of Peruvian portraits and views
Creator:
Maunoury, Eugène, 1830-1896
Creator:
Courret Hermanos
Creator:
Brochery, L.
Creator:
Joliot, Abraham-Léon-Marius
Identifier/Call Number: 2022.R.15
Physical Description:
1 Linear Feet
(89 photographs in 1 album)
Date (inclusive): 1863-1889
Physical Location: Request access to the physical materials described in this inventory through the
catalog record for this collection. Click here for the
access policy .
Abstract: Album containing 89 photographs, most of which are by Eugène Maunoury, a French photographer who was active in Peru from 1861
to 1865. Included are 57 portrait cartes-de-visite of Peruvian sitters; 16 views of Lima, Peru; three portraits of women from
the Marquesas Islands; and two views of Papeete, Tahiti.
Language of Material:
French
.
Contact
Library Reproductions and Permissions .
Eugène Maunoury album of Peruvian portraits and views, 1863-1889, The Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles, Accession no.
2022.R.15.
http://hdl.handle.net/10020/cifa2022r15
Eugène Maunoury (1830-1896), was born near Paris in Villeparisis, France, but moved into the city as a child where he eventually
trained as a draftsman and photographer. Maunoury was active as a photographer in Chile from 1858 to 1860. There he photographed
the great fire of Valparaíso of 1858. In 1861, he moved on to Lima, Peru, where by 1862 he established a photography studio,
Sociedad Fotográfica Maunoury y Cía, at 71 calle del Palacio. By 1862, he was also associated with the Nadar studio as its
Peruvian correspondent and soon became a correspondent for the illustrated Parisian journals
L'Illustration: journal universel and
Le monde illustré. Maunoury used Nadar's endorsement, which entitled him to add Nadar's signature red "N" to his own imprint, to successfully
promote his photography business to such an extent that he opened two more branches of his studio in Lima, one at 36 calle
Constitución, in the port at Callao, and the other at 8 Plateros de San Pedro.
In 1861, Maunoury hired Eugenio Courret, who was then living in Paris, as a camera operator for his new studio. Courret arrived
in Lima before the end of 1861 in time for the studio's opening in January, 1862. As was customary at the time, the work Courret
produced as one of Maunoury's operatives appeared under Maunoury's imprint, and thus was not credited to Courret. Using Courret
Hermanos as their imprint, Eugenio Courret (Michel Eugène Courret, 1839-1920) and his brother, Aquiles Courret (Achille Courret,
1830-) established their own studio, Fotografía Central, in 1863. When Maunoury returned to France in 1865 the Courrets purchased
all three of his studios. Maunoury had a studio in Paris for ten years and then one in Maine-et-Loire for the next ten years
before briefly running a studio in Laval. Finding that Laval could not support his photography studio, Maunoury returned to
Paris in 1894 where he worked as a draftsman. On the night of December 26, 1896 Maunoury wandered the streets of Paris, eventually
asking the brigadier on duty in a police station if he could come inside to warm up, but once inside he pulled out a gun and
fatally shot himself.
Members of the Courret family were already living in Lima when Eugenio Courret immigrated to Peru. Francisco Courret, whose
exact relationship to the brothers Eugenio and Aquiles is unclear, was established in the city by 1838 and owned a luxury
goods store named Mampara de Bronce on calle Mercaderes. Aquiles Courret first landed at the port of Callao in 1851 and by
1853 had also begun importing luxury goods to Peru. The next year he went into partnership with Julio Perret, the former associate
of Adolphe Dubreuil, calling their import business Courret y Cia.
Eugenio had only been working for Maunoury for a short time when he and Aquiles began preparations to convert the family luxury
goods business into a photography studio. By early March 1863, Eugenio had left Maunoury's employ and Fotografía Central was
open for business with Aquiles as its manager and Eugenio heading a cadre of camera operatives. When the Courrets took over
Maunoury's business in May, 1865, they had to renegotiate the Nadar connection, and consequently did not add the red "N" to
their imprint until the end of 1865. By 1868, they had ceased using this device.
While, as with Maunoury, the carte-de-visite portrait craze contributed to the initial success of their business, Courret
Hermanos continued to thrive as a portrait studio for over seventy years by keeping abreast of the rapid developments in photography,
adopting each new portraiture format and viable photographic process as it appeared. Eugenio Courret had made photographic
views of Lima and surrounding areas for Maunoury and continued to do so under his own imprint, documenting new buildings,
engineering projects such as the railroads being built over the Andes, international expositions, and other contemporary events,
as well as taking the portraits of a steady stream of customers. Courret Hermanos produced an abundance of albums that usually
contained a combination of portraits of Limeños, especially of the city's society women whose beauty wsa renowned; cityscapes;
landscapes; occupational portraits; and Peruvian tipos or types.
Aquiles Courret returned to France in 1873, after which Eugenio used E. Courret rather than Courret Hermanos as his imprint.
Eugenio returned to France sometime between 1887 and 1910. Although the firm was listed in the local Lima trade directories
as Courret y Cia until 1914, at some point between 1887 and 1914 it was acquired by Adolphe Dubreuil. The Dubreuil family
ran the firm until 1935.
Sources Consulted:
Courret, Eugenio, and Biblioteca Nacional, issuing body.
Retratos de Lima 1867-1925: Archivo Eugène Courret de la Biblioteca Nacional del Perú / Portraits of Lima 1867-1925: Eugène
Courret Archive of the National Library of Perú
. Lima: Biblioteca Nacional del Perú, 2015.
Fuentes, Manuel Atanasio.
Lima: Esquisses historiques, statistiques, administratives, commerciales et morales. Paris: Firmin Didot, frères, fils & cie., 1866.
___.
Lima: Or, Sketches of the Capital of Peru, Historical, Statistical, Administrative, Commercial and Moral. United Kingdom: Trübner & Company, 1866.
Lestang, Hervé. "Eugène Maunoury,"
Portrait Sepia. http://portraitsepia.fr/photographes/maunoury.
Maude, Henry Evans.
Slavers in Paradise: The Peruvian Labour Trade in Polynesia, 1862-1864. Canberra: Australian National University Press, 1981.
McElroy, Keith.
Early Peruvian Photography. Ann Arbor, MI: UMI Research Press, 1985.
___. "Eugenio Courret and the Courret Archive in Lima, Peru,"
History of Photography, 24:2 (2000): 121-126. DOI: 10.1080/03087298.2000.10443379.
Retter, Yolanda. "Peru," in Paul Hannavy, ed.
Encyclopedia of Nineteenth-Century Photography, vol. 2: 1063-1065. Routledge: New York and London, 2008.
Schwarz, Herman. "Fotógrafos franceses en el Perú del siglo XIX,"
Bulletin de L'Institut Français d'Études Andines 36, no. 1 (2007): 39-49. https://doi.org/10.4000/bifea.4469.
Yates, Rachel. "Language, Culture, and the Impact of 'Slavers in Paradise.'"
Te Papa Blog, August 4, 2017. https://blog.tepapa.govt.nz/2017/08/04/cook-islands-language-week-language-culture-and-the-impact-of-slavers-in-paradise.
The album contains 57 portrait cartes-de-visite of Peruvian sitters; 16 views of Lima, Peru; three portraits of women from
the Marquesas Islands; two views of Papeete, Tahiti; five photographs taken in the courtyard of a two-story house; four card
portraits (two cabinet cards and two Victoria cards); and three partial watercolor paintings of Chinese men. The cartes-de-visite
all bear Eugène Maunoury's imprint, with the exception of two cartes-de-visite that bear Courret Hermanos imprints. All of
the photographs are albumen prints, excepting the cabinet and Victoria cards, which are collodion prints.
Following the dedication page, which is dated 1864 and includes a Courret Hermanos carte-de-visite portrait of a seated man,
likely E. Vione, the presenter of the album, are seven leaves of cartes-de-visite mounted four to a side, recto and verso.
Present are portraits of young society women, Afro-Peruvians, and indigenous Peruvians, as well as a few cityscapes and views
of buildings. Eight of the portraits of young women are hand colored. Several cartes-de-visite portray society women as tapadas
or veiled women (including two of women accompanied by their young maids who are also dressed as tapadas), reflecting the
mid-nineteenth century revival of the tapada costume, a symbol of colonial Lima, when ladies of good breeding covered all
but their eyes in public. Whereas this mode of dress initially signalled modesty, by the time these photographs were taken
it served to enable a societal craze for anonymous flirtation.
The carte-de-visite section concludes with four photographic reproductions of caricatures by Maunoury, three of which are
initialed E. M.
The next 11 leaves in the album contain the 16 views of Lima, the three portraits of women from the Marquesas Islands; and
the two views of Papeete. The views of Lima include city views; views of municipal buildings, churches, and monuments; and
street scenes. One photograph depicts an alley of straw and reed huts populated by indigenous people who display their wares
of produce and used clothing outside their dwellings. The views of Papeete are both depictions of buildings with the harbor
and bay in the background. Although these two images are signed by Maunoury and are on Sociedad Fotográfica mounts, they were
taken by Eugenio Courret who made a four-month journey to Tahiti and the Marquesas Islands from December, 1863 through March,
1864. Since Eugenio Courret was not working for Maunoury at the time it is not clear why these views are signed by Maunoury.
Three costumbrista watercolors depicting Chinese men are mounted on the verso of one of the Papeete views (a fourth watercolor
originally mounted there is no longer present).
The three portraits of Marquesas women are captioned at the bottom of their mounts "Femme canaque" (2) and "Reine canaque."
Canqui (Kanaka; from the Hawaii word for person) was a nineteenth century term used for indigenous Pacific Islanders in general.
A "correspondance du Pérou" written by Maunoury on 12 June 1863 and published in
L'Illustration (vol. 42, 29 August 1863, p. 157-158) is illustrated with variant portraits of two of the three women who appear in the present
album. In the article, the women are identified by name and as all hailing from the island of Ua Pou, the third largest of
the Marquesas islands. Depicted are Tahia-Ka-Hampu, "reine de Va-Pou, femme de Ritozo;" Tahia-Otona; and Tahia-Upa. Ritozo,
"roi de Va-pou" is also depicted in the article.
Maunoury's letter in
L'Illustration addresses what was in effect the Peruvian enslaver trade in Polynesia during the early 1860s after the abolition of slavery
in Peru in 1854 led to a shortage of agricultural laborers and guano gatherers. In 1861, the Peruvian government enacted a
law permitting the importation of "Asiatic colonists," that is Chinese laborers, into the country, but when this did not supply
enough workers Peru tacitly extended the geographical boundaries to include Polynesia as a source of labor. In Polynesia,
recruitment tactics included enlisting willing immigrants, who were usually misled regarding terms and living conditions,
as well as taking people by force and kidnapping.
Only one ship stopped at the island of Ua Pou in search of laborers. Nineteen people were ultimately taken on board for Peru
after local inhabitants were invited to a party on the ship - five people were willingly recruited, six people were taken
by force, and eight women were locked in the captain's cabin during the party - while the remainder of the partygoers escaped
by jumping overboard. The individuals from Ua Pou depicted in Maunoury's article and in the album would have thus been part
of this group. Peru's treatment of Polynesian "immigrants" led to a strong outcry both within the country and internationally.
The conditions Polynesians lived under in Peru were abhorrent, and many Polynesians died of diseases for which they had no
immunity. By 1863, further Polynesian recruitment was halted and those Polynesians still surviving in Peru were eventually
repatriated.
The remaining photographs in the album appear to have been added by the original owner (Adolphe Massinot) sometime after he
received it. Five photographs depict Massinot and his family in the courtyard and on the verandas of their home in Peru. Also
included are a pair of cabinet card portraits of Massinot and his wife by L. Brochery; a Victoria card of Massinot standing
with his wife, daughter, and grandchild; another Victoria card of Massinot as an older man seated on a veranda; and a later
cabinet card portrait of Massinot by L. Joilet. A partial photograph adhered below this final portrait depicts a French villa.
The album is bound in deep red morocco and the covers are edged in brass with two figured brass clasps on the fore edges.
The gilt title on the front cover is framed by an embossed design of crosses set within quatrefoils set within squares. The
cover title is the name and address of Maunoury's main studio: Sociedad Fotográfica / Calle de Palacio 71 / Lima.
Dedication on flyleaf: A. M. Adolphe Massinot / Souvenir du plus dévoué / de ses amis / Lima, 12 Juillet 1864 / E. Vione.
The Maunoury cartes-de-visite bear the imprint below the left corner of the image: E. Maunoury / 71 Calle del Palacio. Below
the right corner of the image is a red "N" indicating Maunoury's association with the Parisian studio of Nadar.
The views of Lima and Papeete are blind stamped on the mount below the image: Sociedad Fotográfica Lima. They are signed below
the image "E. Maunoury" or simply "Maunoury."
The imprint on the mount of the Courret Hermanos carte-de-visite on the flyleaf reads: Fotografía Central / Courret Hermanos
/ 107, calle Mercaderes / Lima. The other carte-de-visite with a Courret Hermanos imprint reads simply "Courret Hermanos Fotógs.
/ Lima" with no address given. As with all of the other photographs in the album, their back stamps are not visible.
The album is disbound and its leaves and covers are housed in separate boxes.
Titles of the individual photographs were devised by the archivist unless otherwise noted.
Open for use by qualified researchers.
Arranged in a single series: Series I. Eugène Maunoury album of Peruvian portraits and views, 1863-1889.
Immediate Source of Acquisition
Acquired in 2022.
The collection was processed and the finding aid written by Beth Ann Guynn in 2022.
Subjects and Indexing Terms
Indigenous peoples -- Peru -- Portraits
Marquesans -- Portraits
Monuments -- Peru -- Lima
Papeete (French Polynesia) -- Description and travel
Streets -- Peru -- Lima
Lima (Peru) -- Description and travel
Albumen prints -- Peru -- 19th century
Photograph albums -- Peru -- 19th century
Studio portraits -- Peru -- 19th century
Photographs, Original.
Cartes-de-visite (card photographs) -- Peru -- 19th century
Black people -- Peru