Album “Memories of the Buenos Aires Campaign”. Circa 1866.

A remarkable album bound in green leather with a gold-stamped title; there is some loss to the spine, but otherwise, it is in good condition. The album contains 40 vintage albumen prints in sepia tones. Handwritten captions in black iron-gall ink appear on the lower right margin of the cardstock pages. Dimensions: the photographs are approximately 14 x 21.5 cm; the album measures 21.5 x 14 cm. Affixed to the beginning of the album are two small lithographic labels: "Musy. Piedad N° 126. Bs. Aires. Encuadernador de París" (featuring an image of a mythological creature) and "Fotografía de Mayo. 25 de Mayo N° 25. Buenos Ayres" (depicting a radiant sun rising over the horizon).

The production of a second consecutive album by the French photographer from Grenoble, Esteban Gonet (1829–1868), points to a deliberate editorial project aimed at documenting his new homeland through precise photographic technology—specifically, by utilizing wet-collodion glass-plate negatives to produce prints on thin albumen paper. It should be noted that, in addition to publishing and distributing these albums, Gonet was an active portraitist, producing the popular *carte-de-visite* photographs, which he sometimes signed by hand in blue ink as "25 - 25."

Of the two albums, this one is the more significant—for several important reasons. Among these is the fact that it provides the first *in situ* documentation of the Argentine countryside, focusing on its two central figures: the gauchos and the Indigenous people. If documenting the city of Buenos Aires using a specialized mobile laboratory—we know of only two such vehicles, one belonging to the Portuguese photographer Christiano Junior and the other to his English successor, Alejandro Witcomb—was a titanic undertaking, one can only imagine the challenge of transporting that delicate photographic and developing equipment across hundreds of kilometers along nearly impassable roads. It must be remembered that, in this early era, photographers had to coat each glass negative plate with emulsion in total darkness and—while the collodion was still dripping—insert it into the back of a camera that had already been focused.

In his second album, Gonnet doubles the number of views found in the first, and the richness of the collection is striking in its thematic variety. There is an abundance of *plein air* images capturing *gauchos* and rural laborers engaged in various farm tasks, as well as Indigenous people in their encampments—the first ethnographic record of its kind in the country—situated across the vast, endless *pampa*. Furthermore, he expands his documentary scope by capturing these same individuals in superb portraits, this time within the comfort of the glass-enclosed studio he operated in the capital. The result is a parade of *gauchos*, rural workers, laborers, Indigenous people, military personnel, and various local archetypes—such as the *escobero* (broom seller)—among other figures.

His wooden camera, mounted on a sturdy tripod, is positioned with a keen documentary eye before adobe-and-thatch ranchos, corrals made of upright wooden posts, outdoor barbecues, scenes of cattle branding and horse taming, the game of *taba*, the slaughtering of cattle, the ever-present ritual of sharing *mate*, the skillful braiding of leather, country women in long skirts, ox-drawn carts, Afro-Argentine farmhands, the solitary *ombú* tree, and life on horseback. It captures unique visual records of the gear and weapons of the *gaucho* from the Buenos Aires region, as well as indigenous attire and ornaments, herds of cattle in the countryside, vast prairies, rivers, forests, and more.

The album also contains several urban views of Buenos Aires and various towns within the province; notably, it provides the first documentation of what was then the "town of Pilar"—now a neighborhood of Buenos Aires. Perhaps the most iconic image in this valuable collection is a group of authentic *gauchos*—wearing their traditional *chiripás* (loose-fitting trousers) and carrying *facones* (long knives)—posing in front of a modest mud-and-thatch *rancho*. This particular *gaucho* scene was a favorite of art historian Vicente Gesualdo, a pioneer in the study of early Argentine photography.

A distinct highlight of Gonnet’s album is his work—confirmed as his own—featuring a close-up studio portrait of the renowned Tehuelche *cacique* (chief) Casimiro Biguá, as well as another shot of him alongside his son, San Slick. These images were later reproduced by other photographers without credit and even adapted into lithographs.

Surviving copies of the album *Recuerdos de la Campaña de Buenos-Ayres* ("Memories of the Buenos Aires Countryside") are extremely rare today. In August 2018, Axel Alexander and I consulted one such copy at the New York Public Library. On August 10, 2018, researcher Susana Gesualdi informed us that the mortal remains of the Frenchman Esteban Gonnet were interred at the Recoleta Cemetery on March 31, 1868. He was only 38 years old, and one cannot help but wonder what his photographic career might have become had this premature death not cut short his creative life.

Abel Alexander

President of the Ibero-American Society for the History of Photography