Description

5 original vintage Post-WWI 1920s silver print photos of Paris by French photographer Pierre Yves-Petit (1886-1969), who went by the name of Yvon. The 2.5 x 3.5 inch photographic subjects: 1. Sacre Coeur 2. Place Vendôme 3. Panthéon 4. Le palais du Louvre 5. Conciergerie When Pierre Yves Petit (1886-1969) was 12, he bought a camera with 100 francs he “borrowed” from his father without his permission. Pierre was reprimanded, but allowed to keep the camera. In the period after World War I, there was a big increase in French tourism and a corresponding increase in the demand for postcards to memorialize one’s visits. Mr. Petit, using the pseudonym Yvon, took exquisite postcard photographs of Paris that he had run off in England on a gravure press in lots of 10,000. Editions d’Art Yvon was a one-man operation, with Petit taking pictures, ordering postcards and selling them to souvenir shops and newsstands. Petit’s city is a place of civility and romantic beauty; of booksellers by the Seine and flower sellers outside the parks and on the bridges; of river barges, palaces, churches, fountains, monuments and cathedrals. He photographed at sunrise and sunset when there would be dramatic shadows, or when clouds and mist gave the city a sense of atmosphere.