Pictures Dated 18th May 2009

Edmond de Goncourt, French author, 1868. Artist: Unknown

Edmond de Goncourt, French author, 1868. Goncourt (1822-1896) was an author, critic and publisher. He bequeathed his entire estate for the foundation of the Academie Goncourt, which, since 1903, awards the Prix Goncourt, the most prestigious award in French literature. A photograph from Album de Photographies dans L'Intimite de Personnages Illustres, 1860-1925, 9th album, Editions MD, Paris.

© The Print Collector / Heritage-Images

Georges Clemenceau, French statesman, 1886. Artist: Unknown

Georges Clemenceau, French statesman, 1886. Clemenceau (1841-1929) when he was a member of the French Chamber of Deputies. He served as Prime Minister of France from 1906-1909 and returned to the premiership in 1917 during the First World War and galvanised French morale undermined by the disastrous Nivelle Offensive and the army mutinies that followed it. After the war finished Clemenceau was one of the architects of the Treaty of Versailles. In the 1890s he was a prominent supporter of the disgraced Captain Albert Dreyfus and in 1898 published Emile Zola's famous open letter J'accuse on the front page of L'Aurore, the newspaper that he published. A photograph from Album de Photographies dans L'Intimite de Personnages Illustres, 1860-1905, 3rd album, Editions MD, Paris.

© The Print Collector / Heritage-Images

Henri Becquerel, French physicist, late 19th or early 20th century. Artist: Unknown

Henri Becquerel, French physicist, late 19th or early 20th century. In 1896 Becquerel (1852-1908) discovered that uranium, when placed on a sealed, light-tight photographic plate, exposed the plate, producing an image of the uranium on the developed plate. He deduced that uranium was emitting an invisible but penetrating radiation. In 1903 he shared the Nobel prize for physics with Pierre and Marie Curie. A photograph from Album de Photographies dans L'Intimite de Personnages Illustres, 1860-1920, 6th album, Editions MD, Paris.

© The Print Collector / Heritage-Images