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Seven Members of the Eynard Family

Creator

Swiss Daguerreotypist · 1775–1863

Jean-Gabriel Eynard was a wealthy amateur photographer who made photographs chiefly for his own amusement. He learned the daguerreotype process in Paris in the early 1840s, not long after the invention of the process was announced in 1839. His financial independence afforded him the time and ability to practice photography, which in its infancy was an expensive pastime and difficult to master. Ass

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Date: about 1847
Medium: Daguerreotype
Culture: Swiss
Department: Photographs
Institution: Getty Museum

Jean-Gabriel Eynard took care to pose these Eynard family members in such a way as to create a casual portrait. Sophie Eynard, seated in profile at the center, anchors the photograph, evenly balanced by two adults and one child on each side. The daguerreotypist himself, the third head from the left, peers out between the boy in a diagonally striped smock and trousers and Sophie Eynard, who holds her child's hand to keep him from squirming. Despite the careful arrangement of figures, Eynard achieved the overall effect of a spontaneous, almost playful grouping. The closeness between the families could be guessed from their tight proximity.

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