Abbot-Charnay Photograph Collection, American Philosophical Society

A traveler, archaeologist, and photographer, Désiré Charnay (1828-1915) was one of the most important early expeditionary photographers. During his tours of Yucatan, Oaxaca, and Chiapas in 1858-1860 and 1880-1886, Charnay became one of the first to use photography in documenting the great Meso-American archaeological sites and to make ethnographic photographs of indigenous Mexicans. His major publications Cités et Ruines Américaines (Paris, 1862) and Les Anciennes Villes du Nouveau Monde (Paris, 1885) are important transitional works to the later scientific archaeology of Alfred Maudslay.

The collection of photographs taken by Desire Charnay are representative of the range of images he took of Meso-American archaeological sites during three tours of Mexico in 1858-1860 and 1880-1886. Although some of the images have suffered an unfortunate degree of fading, they convey the power and fascination that these sites held for Charnay and his contemporaries, and include some of the best early examples of the use of photography in the documentation of Mexican archaeology. The collection includes 123 images of the sites at Tula, Teotihuacan, Iztaccihuatl, Chichen Itza, Comalcalco, and Palenque, of archaeological specimens held at the Museum of Mexico, and of landscape and villages in Yucatan, Chiapas, and Oaxaca, as well as a series of Lacandon, Mayan, Mixtec, and Yucatec "racial types."

Background note

Façade du Castillo à Chichen Itza

A traveler, archaeologist, and photographer, Désiré Charnay (1828-1915) was born in Fleur-sur-l'Arbesle, France, on May 2, 1828. After completing his education at the Lycée Charlemagne in Paris in 1850, Charnay accepted a teaching position in New Orleans, and it was there that he first encountered John Lloyd Stephen's enormously popular Incidents of Travel in Central America, Chiapas, and Yucatan (1841) and Incidents of Travel in Yucatan (1843), which included some of the earliest photographic illustrations (woodcuts based on daguerreotypes) of the famous Mayan archaeological sites in Yucatan.

Inspired by Stephens, and tired of teaching, Charnay returned to France, and in April 1857, secured a commission from the Ministry of Public Instruction to travel to Yucatan and document its archaeological riches. Surprised, he wrote, by the incomplete manner in which previous explorers had dealt with the ruins, he stated that he intended to take it upon himself to make a deeper and more detailed study. Convinced that he could use the precision of scientific photography to allay public doubts about the accuracy of his findings, Charnay undertook a crash course in Paris to learn the rudiments of photography. After acquiring a basic proficiency in the difficult wet plate collodion process, he made a test run, taking a brief photographic tour of the Saint Lawrence River during which he photographed Montmorency, Quebec, and Niagara Falls. Yet it was not until he arrived in Oaxaca that he put himself to the full test as a photographer.

Although hampered by the civil war in Mexico, Charnay visited and photographed a number of significant sites in the Yucatan, Chiapas, and Oaxaca between September 1858 and the late summer 1860, including Mitla, Palenque, Izamal, Chichen Itza, and Uxmal. Dodging rebels and noxious insects, he brought with him a team of as many as 40 Indians to clear the encroaching jungle, yet despite the size of his crew, he was unable to carry out any significant excavations during this trip, and he managed to make only rough maps of the sites. These archaeological limitations, however, were more than compensated for by the documentary and artistic quality of his photographs. Despite the hardships of jungle travel and the technical difficulties of wet plate photography, Charnay managed to take dozens of technically-accomplished images that provide the first scientific documentation of the sites, and any of the best images convey an artistic sense of the grandeur of place, reflecting an awe and wonder in Charnay that resonated with the educated public at home.

Although not the first photographs of Meso-American archaeological sites, the images that Charnay took between 1858 and 1860 had an extraordinary impact due to their timing, extent, and quality. The results of Charnay's labors and his experiences in Mexico formed the basis for two books, the Album Fotográfico Mexicano (Mexico City, 1860), which was enthusiastically received despite a very short print run, and Cités et Ruines Américaines (Paris, 1862), an elaborate and extraordinarily expensive work (500F) which was illustrated with 47 photographic prints and two photolithographs.

Charnay's books made the case that the Mayan and other early cultures of Mexico were the equals of the great cultures of the Old World, and he treated his subjects with a characteristically mid-Victorian fascination with the origins and nature of racial diversity. This theme became even more prevalent during his a brief tour of Madagascar in 1863. In addition to taking a suite of images of cities, villages, and landscapes, Charnay turned his scientific attention on the Malagasy natives, focusing on physical appearance, dress, and occupation as a means of illustrating representative "racial types." He continued to refine his skills as an expeditionary and ethnographic photographer during a tour of Java and Australia fifteen years later, when he once again mixed landscapes and cityscapes with racial types, all the while experimenting with the dry plate process.

In his last photographic expeditions, 1880-1882 and 1886, Charnay returned to Mexico, funded by a wealthy New Yorker, Pierre Lorillard. Visiting and excavating sites at Tula and Teotihuacán, among others, and producing another stirring series of archaeological photographs, Charnay made some unusual images of his camp sites at Yaxchilán and Palenque and of villages and cities in Yucatan. During these trips, he also continued to his ethnographic interests, producing an extensive series of racial types of Lacandon, Mayan, and Mixtec Indians. A few of these images deviate from the usual stiff, scientific formality of the genre, particularly a series of images taken of Lacandons posed in their village (images 10, 15-17).

Charnay appears to have abandoned photography altogether after 1886, even as archaeologists like Alfred Percival Maudslay began to use the camera as an essential element of their expeditionary gear. Charnay returned to Paris, and continued to lecture and write on Mexican antiquities and his travels. He was awarded the Logerot Prize by the French Geographic Society in 1884 and was made an officer in the Legion of Honor, 1888. Among his other books are Le Mexique: Souvenirs et Impressions de Voyage (1863) and Les Anciens Villes du Nouveau Monde (1885), which enjoyed a popular audience when translated into English. Charnay died in Paris on October 24, 1915.

Scope and content

The photographs are albumen prints, most of which were made from wet plate collodion negatives (for the earlier expedition) or dry plate (in the latter), and are mounted on two different types of mount, a standard white cardboard mount with thin black line bordering and a thinner green board. Each includes and hand-written title on the mount in French, and several are marked in pencil "Charnay." It seems probable that the prints were prepared from the negatives during a relatively narrow period of time, probably in the 1880s, but possibly as late as the turn of the century.

The collection was apparently assembled by the scientist Griffith Evans Abbot (1850-1927), who presented them to the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia. The 15 cartes de visite included in the collection, mostly portraits taken in Peru, Chile, and Madeira, bear an uncertain relationship to the Charnay images, and are probably present simply because they were also once owned by Abbot. Although most are simple studio portraits, there are two interesting cartes depicting Hollways Hotel and the "Manner of carrying invalid" in Madeira, and two ethnographic type images, one of natives from Funchal, Madeira, and one of a "Choloe" [sic] type from Peru. One of the cartes from Madeira has an inscription indicating that it was presented by Lt. Frederick Schober, USN, in 1904.

Administrative information

Restrictions

None.

Provenance

Gift of G. E. Abbot to the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia, who in turn presented them to the APS in October 1953.

Preferred citation

Cite as: Abbot-Charnay Collection, American Philosophical Society.

Processing information

Recatalogued by rsc, 2002.

Other finding aids

Referenced in the Guide to American Indian Manuscripts at the APS (Kendall 4504a).

Additional information

Related material

The Printed Materials Department has two works by Charnay:

Charnay, Désiré, Cités et ruines américaines, Mitla, Palenqué, Izamal, Chichen-Itza, Uxmal (Paris, 1863). Call no.: 913.72 C38c.

Charnay, Désiré, The Ancient Cities of the New World : Being Voyages and Explorations in Mexico and Central America From 1857-1882 (New York, 1887). Call no.: 913.72 C38g. The Library also has the French version of 1885.

References

Davis, Keith F., Désiré Charnay, expeditionary photographer (University of New Mexico press, 1981). Call no.: B C375.