Désiré Charnay

French Photographer · 1828–1915

5 works on LinkedCulture

As an adventurous young schoolteacher in New Orleans, Claude-Joseph Désiré Charnay decided to become an explorer. After a brief return to his native France and a tour of the United States, he set off on his first expeditionary sojourn in 1857 to Mexico, where he photographed pre-Columbian ruins. In 1863 he spent three months on the island of Madagascar off the southeastern coast of Africa as a wri