128 PARIS – NEURDEIN FRÈRES (photo.) Paris et ses environs. Paris: Hélaine, Editeur, 214, Rue de Rivoli, [c.1890] The city of Proust – “a significant contribution to the photographic record” A highly appealing and attractively presented album of views of belle époque Paris captured by the celebrated studio of Neurdein Frères, the leading supplier of photographs and postcards to the tourist market; this example issued by the fashionable bookseller F. Hélaine, a specialist in such albums, with a smart arcaded premises on Rue de Rivoli, opposite the Jardin des Tuileries. These sharply focussed and beautifully composed urban landscapes date to around the time of the expositions of 1889 and 1900, and capture the broad boulevards, bustling public spaces and elegant jardins of the city of Proust, Toulouse-Lautrec, and Verlaine. The album opens with a fine roofscape that takes in the seven bridges looking across to the Eiffel Tower in the distance. As one would expect of a tourist album, all of the great Parisian landmarks are here, including the Jardin du Palais Royale, L’Avenue de l’Opéra, Place Vendôme, Place de la Concorde, Champs-Élysées, Trocadéro, Sainte-Chappelle, Palais de Justice, Notre Dame, Bois de Boulogne, as well as scenes at Versailles, and a splendid view of the Eiffel Tower from across the Seine with tourist boats passing below. The Parisian publishing house of the brothers Étienne and Louis-Antonin Neurdein was founded around 1885 and grew to become the largest publisher of postcards of the time. Their tourist albums are important as they “preserve an architectural heritage
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