Saturday 3rd Movember: Men and flowers

Who knows where these men are from. There's not a single jot of information printed on the back of the postcards, and no particular clues as to location on the fronts. What they seem to have in common, apart from a moustache, are the carefully-posed plants they chose at the photographer's studio to enhance their portrait. Perhaps they were trying to say something with flowers...

But wait a minute...

When you look closer at the painted backdrop on both photographs it becomes apparent that they were in fact taken in the SAME studio. That tree to the left in the first photograph is identical to the right-most tree in the second photograph. The painted balustrade is the same as well. Just a quick change of furniture, whip out a few plants and, voila!, we are transformed.

I like to think these two men worked together at their own little florist's shop, somewhere on a quiet street in Paris.

Friday 2nd Movember: France

Two Frenchman, one in footballing clothes and the other in uniform.

I know nothing about the first man, except that he has very large ears. 

The second one is Maurice Chabanne and he is politely (using 'vous' rather than 'tu') writing to someone on the 26th December 1923. With my limited French I think it says something like this:

"I am asking you to come to dinner at midday, if you want to that is. You'll get chicken and rabbit. For the time being father is in hospital and 20 doctors have told him not to eat until after Christmas. For the moment they are giving him valerian tablets." 

I suppose Maurice didn't want all that spare meat to go to waste but we will never know who the guest was to be. Probably a neighbour because the postcard was hand delivered, if delivered at all, for there is no stamp. 

Interestingly, the French don't celebrate Boxing Day on the 26th December; it is just a normal working day.

Friday 2nd Movember: France & Germany

More moustache anonymity: both photographic postcards are unposted and carry no information. One is obviously French, the other obviously German.

It was essential to have something to lean on when having your portrait taken - be it a chair or a table - and to wear a cap (or kepi). Care has been taken to ensure that one's moustache presents as well-maintained.

The insouciance of the Frenchman contrasts nicely with the pomposity of the German - whose graver posture is somewhat leavened by the cheap vase of dried flowers by his side, crudely pasted with a photograph of his (judging by the enormous cross at his throat) military leader (also with moustache)...

Friday 2nd Movember: Kingston, Jamaica

The Duperly family were Parisian photographers with their first business established in Jamaica as early as 1840. The trade was passed down through the generations, from Adolphe to Armand to Theophile. In 1907 they fought fire (losing their original premises) and handicap (losing a hand in the inferno) but managed to carry on photographing the bon ton of Kingston until 1920. The last Duperly in Jamaica, Theophile, died in 1933.

This photograph was probably taken after the great fire in their new premises in 85, King Street Kingston. Our soldier has his pith helmet proudly displayed on a fantastic rattan chair - the very symbol of colonial supremacy that has caused Melania Trump such trouble in recent weeks...

Friday 2nd Movember: UK

Two photographic postcards with no information whatsoever. Both British, that much I know.

No doubt there are military experts out there who, from the uniforms, can immediately tell regiments, dates and ranks. All I can do is point out that someone hasn't buttoned up their uniform properly. Naughty, naughty.

Thursday 1st Movember: Colchester and Batna, Algeria

 

An English soldier from Colchester and a French soldier from Batna in Algeria. Roughly contemporaneous. One with a swagger stick, the other clutching a pair of gloves.

I am loving the Algerian rustic love seat and have a similar-looking occasional table in my bedroom.

Thursday 1st Movember: Mystery location and Sofia

This first image is historically too late for my collection: it looks post WW1 to me and 1918 is generally my cut-off point. Nevertheless, I couldn't resist its painterly charms.

I have always assumed the two men photographed were Latin American but the back of the card seems to be British. Perhaps they were visiting London and had this taken as a souvenir to send back to Buenos Aires...

The man on the right wins hands down in the looks department...

Secondly, I present another postcard which is historically rather late for my collection and which features moustaches which are frankly perfunctory, but once more I couldn't resist it. There's a mandolin! He's serenading him!

The two soldiers are Bulgarian (the back of the postcard has an address in Sofia, bottom left). It's dated 1918. Is there anyone out there who can make out/translate the text for me?

Thursday 1st Movember: Hornberg & Krefeld, Germany

Hornberg is a town in the Black Forest in the region of Ortenaukreis in Germany. It is the 30th December 1903 and Albert Kiefer, his portrait bordered by exuberant art nouveau orchids, is writing to his friend Emil Geiger-Frey in Schopfheim, sending him good wishes for the future...

Three years earlier, on the 18th December 1900, another man is writing from Krefeld near Düsseldorf to his friend Arthur Zorn in Chemnitz in Saxony. His missive arrives at its destination on the 20th December - coincidentally, my birthday. Although it is difficult for me to make out any of the text, despite my seven years of school-taught German, I can read what is written in pencil by his photograph - and it makes for intriguing reading too.

Pencilled vertically, alongside his raincoat, it says, in French, "Je suis que je suis" or, as Gloria Gaynor put it, I am what I am. 

Let's hope Arthur got the message.

Thursday 1st Movember: The Earl of Kerry

I don't normally buy moustaches sported by famous people but this one slipped through the net. If I had read the back properly I would have spotted the following words, half-erased by someone else at some point, 'Earl of Kerry autograph'.

So, here we have an early photograph of Henry Petty-Fitzmaurice, the 6th Marquess of Lansdowne, who styled himself the Earl of Kerry until 1927 when he succeeded to his seat. He was a young soldier here well before the First World War, possibly in the Grenadier Guards or the Oxfordshire Light Infantry, but he went on to have a distinguished career in both the Boer and First World Wars before becoming a politician on both the English and Irish sides of the channel.

The mystery is who is the A J H who sent the photo of the dapper Earl to a young lady, writing "How do you like this?"

How do you like what exactly?

Thursday 1st Movember: Finland & Ratisbonne

Finland. 1908. If only I could work out what was written on the reverse. I have failed to even fathom where it was posted to: Wana-Kaofa? Beppo? Help me please!

I have managed to discover that the stamp is from Finland under Russian control.

Anyway, the Finn is followed by a Frenchman in Regensburg, South East Germany (Ratisbonne in French) photographed in November 1917. André is sporting a rather fetching knitted number, complete with tie.

Thursday 1st Movember: Nimes

Back with some more moustaches for Movember, featured on real photographic postcards.

Firstly, it's over to France for some First World War soldiers - one photographed in Nimes and one addressed to a couple in Nimes (and dated 1910). Nimes is a city in Languedoc in the South of France, dubbed the most Roman city outside of Italy. It can boast both a large Roman amphitheatre and a well preserved Roman temple dedicated to the sons of Agrippa.

Our soldiers are posed next to monumental blocks of architecture, fake balustrades of very little actual solidity. In fact, any trace of an actual location has been carefully airbrushed out in both images. Such was the magic of the photographic studio.