La Vénerie française à l'Exposition de 1865
Léon Crémière French
Publisher J. Rothschild
Not on view
“To the union of all the hunters of France!” Thus begins this commemorative album celebrating the hunting dogs shown at the Canine Exposition of 1865 in Paris. Preceded by an introduction extolling the virtues of various French (and some British) breeds, the book features thirty-six of Léon Crémière’s photographs, divided into pictures of packs with their handlers and portraits of individual dogs, some memorably named: Colonel, Restaurant, and Romance. Crémière, who specialized in the photography of horses and hunting dogs, captures the affable nature of “man’s best friend” even if a certain pathos pervades the pictures; chains tether the dogs in place, visible strings hold their tails aloft, and brands burned into the sides of some of the dogs identify them, through the resulting letters, as personal property.
