Stéphane Passet Archive

Item set

Title
Stéphane Passet Archive
Description
Stéphane Passet took Autochromes in China in 1912 and 1913. He was an appointed operator on behalf of the "Archives de la Planète" [Archives of the Planet].
content
Stéphane Passet archive contains:
- Around 400 Autochromes, stereoscopies, and glass plates (Autochromes full plates measure 9 x 12 cm. Stereoscopic Autochromes measure 4,5 x 10,7 cm. Black and white plates measure 9 x 12 cm)
- 11 moving photograms
- Letters and postcards
- Logbooks (created in India between 1913 and 1914)
- Original Autochromes registers
- “Bulletin de la Société autour du monde”
- Copies of death, marriage and civil status certificates
- Internal documents compiled by Museum’s staff

This archive was created within the context of the Archives de la Planète (Archives of the Planet). This archival project began thanks to the rich French-based banker and philanthropist Albert Kahn (1860-1940), who became concerned about the Chinese cultural heritage after his part-business, part-pleasure trip to China between November 1908 and May 1909. After his return to Paris, Kahn decided to launch the worldwide project Les Archives de la Planète. This three-decade long project distinguished itself from any other initiated at that time thanks to the compilation of a visual inventory of the world utilizing ground-breaking types of media from that time, namely Autochrome and film. With the utopian aim to ‘fix once and for all the aspects, the practices, and modes of human activity whose fatal disappearing is just a question of time’, Kahn hired a dozen operators to help him visualize the world. All the operators hired for the trip were exclusively independent, non-commercial and non-specialist cameramen. Those particularly active in China were Stéphane Passet, Albert Dutertre, and Jacques Gachet.

Passet’s Autochromes are preserved in situ, fully inventoried and digitized on a database, in which one can search by a variety of properties (author, place, date, and so forth). Access to digitized version of Autochromes is possible in situ. One has to create an account in order to access the database. Desks with three large screens facilitate images reading. Low jpg files can be downloaded and taken away upon request.

Process of diffusion of Passet’s photographic archive over time:
- The first function of these collected images was to render them accessible via the formal gatherings of the Société Autour du Monde. This private society founded by Kahn was a convivial and cosmopolitan organization gathering a limited circle of educated people in Kahn’s own private mansion in Boulogne-Billancourt. Members convened every Sunday for informal luncheons, private Autochrome projections and film screenings. As an example, Kahn organized a celebration of Chrysanthemums on 6 November 1912, in which he showed his guests Passet's autochromes depicting Manchuria and Beijing.
- It is also known that autochromes of China were shown to numerous Chinese guests specially invited by Kahn during the 1920s.
- Outside the walls of Kahn's mansion, the autochromes were shown in conferences organized in prestigious institutions, such as the Collège de France where Brunhes was teaching, at the Société de géographie, the Ecole Polytechnique, the Royal Society in London, at the University of Cambridge, and in various conferences held in other countries like Canada, Spain and Switzerland in the first half of the twentieth century.
- Passet's autochromes of China were also published in popular illustrated journals in France and abroad, such as in the “National Geographic” and “Science et voyages” (see references below).
- An exhibition in 2012 (“La Mongolie entre deux ères | 1912-1913”) was dedicated to his pictures and films taken in Mongolia.
Temporal Coverage
Twentieth century (dates CE)
Subject
Documentary photography
Townscapes (built environment)
Color photography
Expeditions (journeys)
Monuments
Landscapes (environments)
Artifacts (object genre)
Architecture
Language
French
References
Amad, Paula. Counter-Archive : Film, the Everyday, and Albert Kahn's Archives de la Planète. New York ; Chichester: Columbia University Press, 2010.

———. "Cinema's 'Sanctuary': From Pre-Documentary to Documentary Film in Albert Kahn's "Archives de la Planète" (1908-1931)." Film History 13, no. 2 (2001): 138-159.

Bretèque, François de la. "Les Archives de la Planète d’Albert Kahn." Vingtième Siècle. Revue d'histoire no. 70 (2001): 156-158.

Museé Albert-Kahn départemental. Chine = 中國 = China: 1909-1934. Paris: Conseil général Hauts-de-Seine, 2001.

Okuefuna, David. Albert Kahn: le Monde en couleurs : Autochromes 1908-1931. Paris: Chêne, 2008.

Passet, Stéphane. “In the Land of Kublai Khan: Sixteen Illustrations in Full Color, Autochromes.” The National Geographic Magazine May volume XLI no. 5 (1922): 465-472.

———. “Une Visite au tombeau de Confucius.” Sciences et voyages no. 233 February 14 (1924): unknown pages.
location
Musée départemental Albert-Kahn
Boulogne-Billancourt
address
10-14 Rue du Port, 92100 Boulogne-Billancourt
collections.albert-kahn.hauts-de-seine.fr

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