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Edouard Isidore Buguet
(France, b. 1840)
Mons. Leymarie and Mons. C. with Spirit of Edouard
Poiret
Carbon print or Woodburytype carte de visite
2.25 x 3.5 inches
circa 1874
Leymarie was the editor of Revue Spirite, which circulated this image
and publicized Buguet's work. In 1875, a French court sentenced Buguet
and Leymarie to a year in prison for fraud after a raid on the Buguet
studio uncovered two shrouded dummies (the smaller of the figures was
used to represent children) and 299 photographs of heads, mounted on
cardboard. Confronted with the evidence, Buguet confessed. But at the
Spiritualist Congress in Brussels during September of 1875, he
recanted-- claiming that the dummies were only used by his employees
when he was absent due to illness, and insisting that two-thirds of
his ghost photographs were genuine. (For an account of the trial and
its impact, please click here)
The English medium and Anglican minister William Stainton Moses
considered this one of the most important spirit photographs ever
made. (Click here to read his comments from an 1875 article, written
shortly before the arrest of Buguet)
Inscriptions on verso:
"Medium Ch. E. Buguet/5 Boulv. Montm. at Paris"
"This is perhaps the most remarkable spirit-picture existing till this
time (Feb. [18]75)--The medium did not manipulate [i.e., make the
exposure or process the image in the darkroom]. The spirit more
distinct than the sitters, is an old friend who died at Pimpres (Oise)
12 years ago. The form is enveloped in the ordinary fluidic veil.
Mons. C is shrouded in the same drapery. See Oxon's article in "Human
Nature," page 82, vol. IX., February 1875." |
