Under his cap his eyes look at you. Investigative, curious, challenging. The boy looks at the photographer, who, with his camera on a tripod just behind him and the fishermen on the banks of the Seine, installed. The photographer told him that he should do ‘just’, as if he is not there. But watching the boy does. The girl in the Jardin du Luxembourg does that, who is squatting in the sand on her with her bucket and her scoop. She cannot restrain herself, from under her big wicker hat her gaze glides curiously.
It is these kinds of daily scenes from more than a century ago that the Marseille house in Amsterdam shows in the beautiful exhibition Revoir Paris, Paris through the lens of the Zeeberger brothers (1900-1907). At the beginning of the twentieth century, the brothers traveled through Paris as amateur photographers. At that time, the municipality of Paris called on its inhabitants to capture the city and show its picturesque side. Competitions and exhibitions were organized on a theme, for which everyone was allowed to submit photos. Those photos came into possession of the city and were included in the archives of Musée Carnavalet, a museum for the history of Paris.
In the attic of that museum, a box was recently discovered during a recent move with fifty photos stuck on cardboard sheets, in an unusually large size (50 x 60 cm). It turned out to be submissions of the Seeberger family, made between 1903 and 1907. Nobody knew about their existence anymore.
Snowball
Time stands still on many of those images. Literally and figuratively. The boys who throw snowballs among the trees in the Jardin du Luxembourg are frozen, their hands stiff with cold. Everything was staged; The exposure time from then was considerably longer than that of a Snapshot of today. The tennis players in a suit with vest probably had been able to play a game in the time they had to stand still, so that the photo would not have been moved. You see it and it touches you. Because nothing has changed here in a century: you still see the prosperous local residents of the park tennis and when there is snow there are boys and girls in the most expensive designer clothing. Only on the Croquetbaan van then does the Jeu De Boulesvereniging now play.
But also the poorer neighborhoods of Paris come by: Meanwhile, houses in Rue des Boulangers in Saint-Denis have disappeared, where women with their daughters are lugging full wicker baskets, the vowels are still shiny with the rain. The mattress makers under the bridge at Notre-Dame are moving in their simplicity; The man with cap and the cigarette in his mouth bends over his loom, the woman sewing the seams closely. A little further on, the chimney of dredgers along the Seine-Oevers will break out dark clouds. Workers at lunch sit on a box, a piece of bread in the hand and a bottle at the mouth. If you look closely you will see that the cork is still on it (otherwise the bottle would have drained while taking the photo).
You can see that time has indeed passed the photos of Vieux Montmartre. Anyone who now walks through the narrow streets can be caught by nostalgia at the sight of the baroque cafés, the small vineyard and the painter’s square. But more than a hundred years ago there was little reason for that: hard work was done to keep the mills going, it was poverty asset, even though you see that even then a painter, in a suit with hat, came the skewed sheds to draw. Picturesque yes, but especially for those who did not live there.
The Zeeberger brothers deserved a living in the textile. After they won prizes at the exhibitions, they had many of their photos made postcards. Later they focused on fashion photography. That they already sprout you in their images of a graceful lady on a balcony in the Marais or a charming gentleman leaning against a fence. Great is also the photo of ladies who show how practical a pants are when you, jumping from stone to stone, have to cross a pond. Revoir Paris Is, with a nod to Marcel Proust, a tranquil jump in the lost time.