Exhibition "Souvenirs de Touraine"
Memories of Touraine
Neurdein brothers and tourist photography.
Mont Saint-Michel, the Eiffel Tower, the castles of the Loire. With the simple evocation of these monuments and high places of tourism in France, images come to mind. The aphotography was used very early to put in pictures the tourist sites and companies specialized there from the last third of the nineteenth century. Neurdein brothers (1863-1918) is one of those Parisian companies that travels the territory, photography for tourists and also widely disseminates its views in the world of publishing and illustrated objects. Photographers thus conceive a standardized way of representing cities and monuments, in search of the "ideal" point of view.
The city of Tours and Touraine are part of the circuits planned by Etienne and Antoine Neurdein and are the subject of several photographic reports. Many sites and monuments such as the Saint-Gatien cathedral or the cloister of the Psalette become subjects first proposed in photography then in postcard.