cross – enclos*ure

Écardenville-sur-Eure

June 30, 2017August 22, 2017 Cindy at enclos*ureLeave a comment

Cross and coquelicots, Écardenville-sur-Eure, Normandy, France, June 30, 1920, by Georges Chevalier, via Archives of the Planet Collection – Albert Kahn Museum /Département des Hauts-de-Seine.

This autochrome is one of about seventy-two thousand that were commissioned and then archived by Albert Kahn, a wealthy French banker and pacifist, between 1909 and 1931. Kahn sent thirteen photographers and filmmakers to fifty countries “to fix, once and for all, aspects, practices, and modes of human activity whose fatal disappearance is no longer ‘a matter of time.'”* The resulting collection is called Archives de la Planète and now resides in its own museum at Kahn’s old suburban estate at Boulogne-Billancourt, just west of Paris. Since June 2016, the archive has also been available for viewing online here.

*words of Albert Kahn, 1912. Also, the above photo (A 22 388) is © Collection Archives de la Planète – Musée Albert-Kahn and used under its terms, here.

U.S. Botanic Garden

April 17, 2017April 16, 2017 Cindy at enclos*ureLeave a comment

Euphorbia milii, U.S. Botanic Garden, Washington, D.C., 1920, by National Photo Company, via Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division.

The plant is a native of Madagascar. Its common name is “crown of thorns.”

Verdun, France

February 11, 2017August 20, 2017 Cindy at enclos*ureLeave a comment

Soldiers’ graves in the region of Verdun, France, ca. 1914 to ca. 1918, photographer unknown, via Université de Caen Normandie Commons on flickr.

“A gravesite decorated and trellised by the soldiers of the X. . . regiment of infantry.”

The photo is one of over 1,800 donated to the archives of Seine-Maritime in Rouen and the Université de Caen by the founder of Lafond Printing in Rouen. The sepia photographs have been digitized in their original condition: glued on bristol board with handwritten captions identifying places and scenes. Most of the pictures concern World War I.

You can click on the image to enlarge it.

A soldier’s grave

February 7, 2017August 20, 2017 Cindy at enclos*ureLeave a comment

“A soldier’s grave in the desert marked with barbed wire, stones and a cross,” Middle East, ca. 1916, photographer unknown, via State Library of Queensland Commons on flickr.