Revoir Paris: Paris through the lens of the Séeberger brothers

From 15 February until 22 June 2025 Huis Marseille, Museum for Photography (Amsterdam) will be showing a selection of 72 original, large-format prints by the Séeberger brothers, successful French amateur photographers, in the exhibition Revoir Paris. Paris through the lens of the Séeberger brothers (1900-1907). The brothers’ photos were made in the course of four photographic competitions organised by the city of Paris in the early 20th century, and are now held by Musée Carnavalet, the museum of the history of Paris itself. They represent an early form of street photography, and have never been exhibited on this scale before. Of the 72 prints on show in Huis Marseille, sixteen were rediscovered in 2017 in the attic of the Paris museum.

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Travel through the Paris of the belle époque
The Séeberger brothers were Jules (1872-1932) and his two younger brothers, Henri (1876-1956) and Louis (1874-1946). Their photos show the city’s most iconic locations, such as Montmartre, but also less well-known spots, like the Bièvre river. Every location is enlivened by the presence of Parisian men and women. The exhibition offers a chronological and thematic journey through the Paris of the belle époque as seen through the lens of the Séeberger brothers – who captured, better than anyone, the atmosphere of the capital on the eve of the First World War.

Amateur photography competitions
At the beginning of the 20th century cameras were becoming increasingly user-friendly, and photography began to attract a growing number of enthusiasts. The Paris city council responded by organising amateur documentary photography competitions which culminated in an exhibition. Between 1904 and 1907 four such competitions were held, and the Séeberger brothers took part in all four. The city specified the themes, focusing on historic locations or sites threatened by change or even disappearance, such as the Jardin du Luxembourg, the Jardin des Plantes, the banks of the Seine, the historic Montmartre, the grand hôtels (private mansions) in the Marais district, and the Bièvre. The photos sent in were judged by a jury and exhibited in the Petit Palais. The winners received a medal and the city council acquired the winning photographs for the Musée Carnavalet collection. These four exhibitions offered the Séeberger brothers an opportunity for their work to be noticed, and it launched their career, which later concentrated on postcards and photographs of beautifully-dressed women in the street.

Large-format prints
The brothers distinguished themselves from other photographers by printing in large format and by enlivening their urban landscapes with human figures. Although lengthy exposure times meant that most of these images had to be staged, the postures of these human figures gives the impression that the images were spontaneously captured, and the photos immediately make one think of snapshots. These qualities are still striking today, especially when we remember that enlargements were rare at the time and that the brothers worked with 13 x 18 cm and even 18 x 24 cm glass plates.

‍A remarkable discovery
Musée Carnavalet possesses an exceptional collection of 423 prints, all of which had been part of the four photography competitions, and it is the only museum that holds large-format prints of these photos by the Séeberger brothers. In 2017 the museum made a remarkable discovery: while preparing to move all the collections so that renovation work could be carried out, fifty large-format prints on grey cardboard by Jules Séeberger were found in the attic. They had been made for the second exhibition (on old Montmartre, private gardens, and the Bièvre). Sixteen of these rediscovered prints will be on display in Huis Marseille. This recent find formed the basis of new research which reevaluates the Séeberger brothers’ prints, made 120 years ago, in the light of the time and context in which they were made.

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