Pierre Trémaux (20 July 1818 – 12 March 1895) was a French architect, Orientalist photographer and author of numerous scientific and

ethnographic Ethnography is a branch of anthropology and the systematic study of individual cultures. It explores cultural phenomena from the point of view of the subject of the study. Ethnography is also a type of social research that involves examining ...

publications.

Life and career

Very little is known about Pierre Trémaux's life. He was born in Charrecey, France, into a family of modest means. He was the son of Jean-Marie Trémaux, a farmer and Claudine Renaudin, and had at least two sisters. Details of his final years are very sketchy and no details of his death and final resting place are known. Trémaux distinguished himself in many fields. He entered the

École des Beaux-Arts ; ) refers to a number of influential art schools in France. The term is associated with the Beaux-Arts architecture, Beaux-Arts style in architecture and city planning that thrived in France and other countries during the late nineteenth centu ...

in 1840 and received the second

Prix de Rome The Prix de Rome () or Grand Prix de Rome was a French scholarship for arts students, initially for painters and sculptors, that was established in 1663 during the reign of Louis XIV of France. Winners were awarded a bursary that allowed them t ...

in Architecture in 1845. As a trained architect, he worked at the Schneider establishments in

Le Creusot Le Creusot () is a Communes of France, commune and industrial town in the Saône-et-Loire Departments of France, department, Regions of France, region of Bourgogne-Franche-Comté, eastern France. The inhabitants are known as Creusotins. Formerl ...

. He was interested in

urbanism Urbanism is the study of how inhabitants of urban areas, such as towns and cities, interact with the built environment. It is a direct component of disciplines such as urban planning, a profession focusing on the design and management of urban ...

and the construction of the

Suez Canal The Suez Canal (; , ') is an artificial sea-level waterway in Egypt, Indo-Mediterranean, connecting the Mediterranean Sea to the Red Sea through the Isthmus of Suez and dividing Africa and Asia (and by extension, the Sinai Peninsula from the rest ...

Egypt Egypt ( , ), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a country spanning the Northeast Africa, northeast corner of Africa and Western Asia, southwest corner of Asia via the Sinai Peninsula. It is bordered by the Mediterranean Sea to northe ...

. Interested in

natural history Natural history is a domain of inquiry involving organisms, including animals, fungi, and plants, in their natural environment, leaning more towards observational than experimental methods of study. A person who studies natural history is cal ...

, he traveled to

Algeria Algeria, officially the People's Democratic Republic of Algeria, is a country in the Maghreb region of North Africa. It is bordered to Algeria–Tunisia border, the northeast by Tunisia; to Algeria–Libya border, the east by Libya; to Alger ...

Tunisia Tunisia, officially the Republic of Tunisia, is a country in the Maghreb region of North Africa. It is bordered by Algeria to the west and southwest, Libya to the southeast, and the Mediterranean Sea to the north and east. Tunisia also shares m ...

Upper Egypt Upper Egypt ( ', shortened to , , locally: ) is the southern portion of Egypt and is composed of the Nile River valley south of the delta and the 30th parallel North. It thus consists of the entire Nile River valley from Cairo south to Lake N ...

Sudan Sudan, officially the Republic of the Sudan, is a country in Northeast Africa. It borders the Central African Republic to the southwest, Chad to the west, Libya to the northwest, Egypt to the north, the Red Sea to the east, Eritrea and Ethiopi ...

and

Ethiopia Ethiopia, officially the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, is a landlocked country located in the Horn of Africa region of East Africa. It shares borders with Eritrea to the north, Djibouti to the northeast, Somalia to the east, Ken ...

in 1847–1848, where he made many drawings and was one of the first persons to produce

photographic image Photography is the art, application, and practice of creating images by recording light, either electronically by means of an image sensor, or chemically by means of a light-sensitive material such as photographic film. It is employed in man ...

s of these regions. From

Alexandria Alexandria ( ; ) is the List of cities and towns in Egypt#Largest cities, second largest city in Egypt and the List of coastal settlements of the Mediterranean Sea, largest city on the Mediterranean coast. It lies at the western edge of the Nile ...

, he traveled up the Nile to Nubia. In 1853–1854, he undertook a second photographic trip to Libya, Egypt, Asia Minor, Tunisia, Syria and Greece. Having spent seven years in the region, he returned from these trips with many illustrations and photographic images, some of the first photographs ever made of the region and its people.

Work

Photography

With 21 photographs and 56 lithographs made after his photos, relatively few have survived, and their condition is poor. According to Chief Curator of Photography at the Israel Museum, Nissan N. Perez, his photographs "reveal that Trémaux had an interest in Anthropology, anthropological photography, and, had he succeeded, it might have been a most important survey of Oriental types and customs, and not, as it is today, a mere gallery of curiosities." Nevertheless, his published works, such as the ''Voyages'' series of 1852 to 1862, were the first books on Egypt, Sudan, Palestine and other Middle Eastern regions with illustrations based on photographs by the author.

Theory of evolution

Trémaux is also the author of a work that caused a sensation at the 1867 World's fair, Universal Exhibition in Paris titled, ''Origine et transformations de l'homme et des autres êtres '' (''Origin and transformations of man and other beings, 1865''). In this book he proposed an evolutionary theory that racial differences have "a natural basis" in biology and geology, referred to nowadays as the theory of punctuated equilibria.

Publications

Between 1852 and 1868, Trémaux produced a number of distinct groups of photographic plates to accompany texts on the geography, architecture, and people of regions in Africa and Asia Minor. Produced with the support of the French government, these high quality publications combined an array of graphic techniques in ways that had not previously been attempted. His surviving images are salted paper prints, engravings, tinted and colour Lithography, lithographs and Photolithography, photolithographs.Addleman-Frankel, K., "The Experience of Elsewhere: Photography in the Travelogues of Pierre Trémaux," '' Photographies,'' Vol. 11, No. 1, 2018, pp 31–56, DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/17540763.2017.1399287 Articles * "Notice d’un voyage sur le cours du Nil et dans des parties inconnues du Soudan, chez les nègres Bertha, du Darfok et du Dar-Gourum," ''Bulletin de la Société de Géographie,'' 1849, sèr., 12 pp 67–72 * "Notes sur la localité ou sont situées les principales mines d’or du Soudan oriental, et observations critiques sur le récit du Colonel Kovalevski relatif à cette même contrée." ''Bulletin de la Société de Géographie,'' 1850, sér. 13 (73–78) * "Quelques détails sur les prétendus hommes à queue," ''Bulletin de la Société de Géographie,'' 1855, 4e sér., 9 (49–54), p. 139-148 * "Épisode d’un voyage au Soudan oriental et remarques sur l’esclavage," ''Bulletin de la Société de Géographie,'' 1856, 4e sér., 11 (61–66), p. 153-164 * "Remarques sur l’Afrique centrale et orientale," ''Bulletin de la Société de Géographie,'' 1862, 5e sér., 3 (13–18), p. 69-86 et 147–165 Books * ''Parallèle des édifices anciens et modernes du continent africain, illustré de 82 planches et une carte de l'Afrique Centrale,'' 1858 * ''Dessinés et relevés de 1847 à 1854 dans l'Algerie, les régences de Tunis et de Tripoli, l'Égypte, la Nubie, les déserts, l'île de Méroé, le Sennar, le Fa-Zogle, etc.'' * ''Exploration archéologique en Asie mineure, illustré de 92 planches,'' 1864 * ''Voyage en Éthiopie, au Soudan Oriental et dans la Nigritie, atlas illustré de 61 planches,'' Hachette, 1852 * ''Voyage en Éthiopie, au Soudan Oriental et dans la Nigritie, Vol 1: Égypte et Éthiopie, textes de l'Atlas,'' Hachette, 1862 * ''Voyage en Éthiopie, au Soudan Oriental et dans la Nigritie, Vol. 2: Le Soudan, textes de l'Atlas,'' Hachette, 1862. * ''Origine et transformations de l'homme et des autres êtres,'' Hachette, 1865 * ''Principe universel de la vie, de tout mouvement et de l'état de la matière,'' Chez l'auteur, 1868, 1874, 1876 * ''Origine des espèces et de l'homme avec les causes de fixité et de transformation et principe universel du mouvement et de la vie ou loi des transmissions de force,'' 1898

References

Bibliography

* Pierre Trémaux, in François Pouillon (ed.), ''Dictionnaire des orientalistes de langue française'', Paris, IISMM & Karthala, 2008, pp. 940 – 941, * "Comptes-rendus de la Société de Géographie à Paris de 1850 à 1897" (online on Bibliothèque nationale de France, Gallica). * Nicolas Le Guern, "L'Égypte et ses premiers photographes : étude des différentes techniques et du matériel utilisés de 1839 à 1869", 2001

External links

Origine et transformations de l'homme et des autres êtres (Hachette, 1865)
available on Google books {{DEFAULTSORT:Tremaux, Pierre 1818 births 1895 deaths 19th-century French architects 19th-century French photographers French architectural photographers Knights of the Legion of Honour French ethnographers French orientalists French landscape photographers People from Saône-et-Loire Pioneers of photography Prix de Rome for architecture Proto-evolutionary biologists Punctuated equilibrium Expatriate photographers in Sudan Expatriate photographers in Egypt