Details
PASTEUR, LOUIS. Photograph inscribed and signed ("L.Pasteur"), by Pierre Petit, n.d., inscription dated 1 January 1869. 355 x 279 mm. (14 x 11 in.) including mount, an albumen print, shaped to a large oval and on a tan mount with Petit's blindstamped logo at base. A portrait of the scientist, seated, with one arm resting on the arm of a chair. INSCRIBED BY PASTEUR TO A FELLOW SCIENTIST. In dark ink on lower portion of the mount Pasteur has written: "A mon ancien e bon camarad, J. Marcou Souvenir affecteaux ca 1er janvier 1869 L. Pasteur."
Jules Marcou (1824-1898), to whom the photo is inscribed, was a French geologist, professor of minerology at the Sorbonne and later of paleontology in Zurich. He travelled in America with Louis Agassiz, the Swiss zoologist and in 1860 settled in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where he resided until his death. Pasteur (himself a professor of geology at the Ècole des Beaux-Arts) and Marcou had no doubt been colleagues in Paris. Photographs inscribed by Pasteur, especially from this relatively early period of his career, are rare.
Jules Marcou (1824-1898), to whom the photo is inscribed, was a French geologist, professor of minerology at the Sorbonne and later of paleontology in Zurich. He travelled in America with Louis Agassiz, the Swiss zoologist and in 1860 settled in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where he resided until his death. Pasteur (himself a professor of geology at the Ècole des Beaux-Arts) and Marcou had no doubt been colleagues in Paris. Photographs inscribed by Pasteur, especially from this relatively early period of his career, are rare.