Lefrisé
Adrien Tournachon French
Not on view
This charming photograph of a Poitou donkey (a breed now endangered) is a particularly engaging example of the portraits Tournachon made of the prizewinning animals at the French national agricultural competitions in the late 1850s and early 1860s. Such photographs were intended to serve artists and breeders alike as records of particularly fine specimens of horses, cattle, and donkeys. They were also intended as souvenirs of rural life; as interested in the handlers as in the animals, Tournachon considered publishing a series of photographs isolating the peasants in their regional costumes.
