Paul Trutat – enclos*ure

A repeat from December 2012. . . . I love this bleary little photo.

Paul and Henri at Cornusson, Parisot Commune, in the Pyrenees, France, ca. 1870 — like yesterday’s post — by Eugène Trutat, via the Bibliothèque de Toulouse Commons on flickr.

As from the house your mother sees

You playing round the garden trees,

So you may see, if you will look

Through the windows of this book,

Another child, far, far away,

And in another garden, play.

But do not think you can at all,

By knocking on the window, call

That child to hear you. He intent

Is all on his play-business bent.

He does not hear; he will not look,

Nor yet be lured out of this book.

For, long ago, the truth to say,

He has grown up and gone away,

And it is but a child of air

That lingers in the garden there.

— Robert Louis Stevenson, “To Any Reader”

Paul Trutat at Cornusson, France, by his father, Eugène Trutat. All photos here via Bibliothèque de Toulouse Commons on flickr.

Do you have a favorite outdoor spot for taking family photographs?

For early French photographer Eugène Trutat (1840 – 1910), it seems to have been this garden path, which was in Cornusson, a village in the Parisot commune in the Midi-Pyrénées.

The property may have been part of the family home of his wife, Caroline Cambe. The couple were married in Cornusson in 1864. Paul (above) was born in 1865 and Henri in 1868.

(There’s a sweet picture of the two little boys together here.)

Eugène was from Toulouse. In addition to being a photographer, he was a naturalist, geologist, mountaineer of the Pyrénées, and a curator of the Museum of Toulouse.

Caroline (née Cambe) in a man’s suit. I believe this was taken between 1859 and 1870.