Description:

Eiffel Alexandre

Gustave Eiffel ALS Regarding his New Photography/Motion Picture Company; his Camera Prototype Would Later be Tested from the Eiffel Tower!

 

3pp ALS inscribed overall in French and signed by French civil engineer Gustave Eiffel (1832-1923) as "G. Eiffel" on the top of the third page. The cream graph paper emblazoned with a large beaver watermark is in near fine condition, with expected wear including light paper folds, and a few chipped edges and closed tears. Each page measures 5.375" x 8.5."

 

Gustave Eiffel wrote this 3pp ALS to his son-in-law Adolphe Salles (born 1858) on June 29, 1895. Primarily a business letter, Eiffel discussed financial details of what he termed the "Richard Affair."

 

Felix-Max Richard, owner of a photography company called Comptoir General de Photographie, asked Eiffel to buy his company after an acrimonious family squabble. Eiffel co-purchased the company with three investors, Joseph Vallot, Leon Gaumont, and Alfred Besnier, and renamed it L. Gaumont et Cie in May 1895. Two of these business partners--Vallot and Gaumont--are mentioned in this letter as having contributed 75,000+ francs and 25,000+ francs respectively to the company capital. Eiffel had contributed 50,000+ francs.

 

Eiffel served as president of L. Gaumont et Cie from 1895 to 1906, and actively participated in everything from daily operations to product designs. Eiffel designed the company's Cailletet automatic camera that was later tested from the 1,000+ ft tall Eiffel Tower in October 1897. Encouraged by this success widely publicized in numerous scientific journals, technicians later ascended 8,000 ft in a silk hot air balloon to take new negatives.

 

During his later career, Eiffel became interested in other scientific fields. He conducted air balloon, wind tunnel, and weather experiments. As we know from this letter, Eiffel also devoted himself to photography. The drawings that he mentions below probably related to camera design.

 

"My designs will not be finished tomorrow Sunday and I will only loose Monday, but I don't understand why it has taken so much longer than I predicted. I must depart at 1 pm for Geneva, sleep over in Lyon, and leave there around 9 am not to arrive until around 10 pm the night of the 13th…What would be the best itinerary to Switzerland in your opinion? You have until Monday morning to let me know.

 

It is as always beautiful weather and I am still very busy but that pleases me a lot and I am satisfied with my results. Lieutenant Bardan (?) gives me gray hairs. If I didn't have a sketch artist I would never finish…"

 

Gustave Eiffel was a household name in 1895, not only for his civil engineering feats but also for his architectural designs. He had trained at a prestigious polytechnic institute in Paris in the 1850s and gained experience designing railroad bridges and stations, theaters, churches, fountains, lighthouses, and observatories throughout Europe and South America. In addition, Eiffel either spearheaded or collaborated in high-profile projects; he designed the inner scaffolding for Bartholdi's Statue of Liberty, and drafted plans for the 1,063 ft tall wrought-iron tower constructed for the 1889 Exposition Universelle that would later bear his name.

 

Adolphe Salles, a trained mining engineer, had married Eiffel's eldest daughter Claire (1863-1934) in 1886. (Claire is mentioned in the last lines of this letter.) Salles collaborated with his father-in-law on the Eiffel Tower and Panama Canal lock projects.

 

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