Souvenir de Cannes et environs

First edition, illustrated with 11 photographic prints measuring 9 x 15 cm, mounted on heavy paper and hinged on stubs. 

S.l., s.d. [circa 1890], oblong 12mo (12 x 19 cm), 

Publisher's full green percaline binding, smooth unlettered spine, gilt and blind-tooled fillet borders on the covers, title stamped in gilt on the upper cover, a few stains to the covers, grey-blue paper pastedowns and endpapers.

A photographer active in Nice from the late 1860s to around 1883, Jean Walburg de Bray (1839-1901) subsequently moved to Cannes, where he remained until the early 1890s. His assistant Jean Gilletta (1856-1933) succeeded him in Nice and reissued part of the stock under his own name. Over the course of his career, Walburg de Bray produced more than 500 albumen prints devoted to the villas of Cannes and the surrounding area, often showing their owners as well (prints preserved in Nice, at the Bibliothèque municipale du Chevalier de Cessole). He also photographed the floats and groups of the Cannes Cavalcades. He was, moreover, the official photographer to Prince Charles III of Monaco.

The photographs are described as follows:  1. View of Cannes, taken from the Croix des Gardes. - 2. Boulevard de la Croisette. - 3. The cours, seen from Mont-Chevalier. - 4. General view of Cannes from La Californie (later Pablo Picasso's villa). - 5. The English quarter. - 5. [Uncaptioned]. - 6. Saint-Cassien. - 7. The Montagnes de l'Eternel. - 8. La Napoule. - 9. Îles Sainte-Marguerite. - 10. Îles Saint-Honorat. - 11. General view of Grasse.