Snapshots of the Past

[Grand Balloon... de Mr. Henry Gifford, 1878 - Low aerial view of Seine bridges from balloon] – Vintage Photo Print

[Grand Balloon... de Mr. Henry Gifford, 1878 - Low aerial view of Seine bridges from balloon], 1878 — historic photograph
[Grand Balloon... de Mr. Henry Gifford, 1878 - Low aerial view of Seine bridges from balloon], 1878. Historic photograph from the Ballooning collection.

(Originally scanned by the Library of Congress. Each image is professionally and digitally cleaned of artifacts such as color bars and extra borders prior to printing.)

Description

Few images capture their era like this historic photograph of [Grand Balloon... de Mr. Henry Gifford, 1878 - Low aerial view of Seine bridges from balloon]. Sourced directly from the Library of Congress, it represents an authentic piece of documented history.

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[Grand Balloon... de Mr. Henry Gifford, 1878 - Low aerial view of Seine bridges from balloon]

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Few pictures from the late 1870s show Paris from this height, and this one looks down on the bridges spanning the Seine from a captive balloon. The caption card credits the ascent to Henri Giffard, the French engineer who built a large tethered balloon for the 1878 Exposition Universelle, which carried passengers up on a cable for views over the city. The print is a sepia photoprint attributed to Dagron, and it belongs to the Tissandier Collection, assembled by the aeronaut and writer Gaston Tissandier. Because the record notes that its data is unverified, the attributions are best read as the card's claims rather than settled fact. Even so, the picture shows how aerial photography was beginning to change how people saw a city.

Created / published1878
Medium1 photographic print.
GenrePhotographic prints 1870-1880.
NotesThis record contains unverified data from old caption card. Tissandier Collection. Part 2." Sepia photoprint by Dagron."
SourceLibrary of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division
Original scan1,536 × 1,217 px · prints to 5 × 4 in at 300 dpi
ReferenceAMZ-SOTP-HPA-144106

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