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[PACIFIC - TAHITI] [Album of Fifty Early Original Photographs of Tahiti, Including Portraits of Queen Pomare IV, King Pomare V and His Wife, Queen of Bora Bora, French Naval Officers, Views of the French Naval Transport Ship Scorff, Matavai Bay, Titled:] Souvenirs l’Ocean Pacifique

Spitz, Charles Georges; Hoare, Susan; Miot, Paul-Emile

Item #410

Ca. 1880-1887. 32,5x25 cm. Sixty album leaves (ten blank). Fifty albumen prints (one in two copies) of various size, from 7x4,5 cm to ca. 20x25,5 cm, the majority are ca. 11x16,5 cm or slightly larger. Photographs are mounted on rectos of the album leaves (with one mounted on verso, one loosely inserted); the majority with period manuscript pencil or ink captions in French on the mounts. Nine photos additionally mounted on card (including five images on the cabinet cards of Papeete photo studios of Georges Spitz and Mrs. S. Hoare). Contemporary cloth album with colour stamped decorative ornament on the boards and spine; paper label with a faded ink title on the front cover, spine and back cover with some mild fading, but overall a very good album and strong interesting photographs.

Interesting collection of early views of Tahiti taken by prominent local photographers just a few years after the annexation of the island by France in 1880. The photos were apparently collected by a French naval officer during his service in 1886-1887 on the transport ship ‘Scorff’ of the French Pacific Naval Division under command of Raymond Paul Adolphe Marie de Royer de Saint Julien (1849-1900). The album opens with a portrait of Queen Pomare IV taken by an important photographer of Tahiti Admiral Paul-Emile Miot in ca. 1870; a part of the outstanding series of photos of Oceania taken by Miot during his service as the chief of staff of the French Naval Pacific Division on board the frigate ‘Astrée’ in 1868-71. The other images in the album belong to the Papeete studios of Charles Spitz and Susan Hoare: five photos are mounted on the distinctive studio cards with printed names of the photographers, and eight more were identified on the basis of Jean-Yves Tréhin’s ‘‘Tahiti, l’Éden à l’épreuve de la photographie’’ (Gallimard, 2003, see pp. 68, 72, 84, 85, 89, 94, 100, and others); the other images most likely were taken by the same studios, judging on the similar style and choice of objects.

The photographs include several portraits of the rulers of the Society Islands, including those of Queen Pomare IV, King Pomare V and his wife Queen Marau, the king surrounded by his tohitus (chiefs), and the Queen of Bora Bora; the members of the influential Salmon family (the founder of the clan Alexander Salmon (1820-1866), a merchant from Britain, became the first Jew to reside in Tahiti); interesting studio group portraits of Tahitians in traditional costumes; a well-known portrait of a Marquesan warrior, families of the ‘‘Tahitians from the interior’’, and others. There are also interesting street views of Papeete and several photos of the interior of Tahiti (most likely taken by George Spitz during his travels across the island): Matavai Bay, Fautaua River and Falls, Le Diadème Peak, Taravao; and a distant view of the Moorea Island. Ten ‘naval’ photos include a portrait of Rear-Admiral Marcq de Saint-Hilaire, the commander of the Pacific Division at the time, group portrait of ‘Scorff’s’ officers (in two copies), views of the ‘Scorff’, ‘Décret’, ‘Duquesne’ and other ships of the Pacific Division on the Tahitian roadstead, festivities on the 14th of July in the Papeete harbor, a large view of a military review, and others. There is also an interesting photo of the distribution of prizes at the first Papeete Catholic school for boys in 1886, featuring Delphino Moracchini (governor of French Polynesia in 1885-1886).

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