The Role of Architecture in Eynard’s Work

As was the custom then in many countries throughout Europe, notably France, England, and Russia, Eynard immortalized the buildings that he had constructed, symbols of his success in society and his tastes in art. Between 1833 and 1836, he commissioned the painter Alexandre Calame to do various views of the Palais Eynard and Beaulieu. In the 1840s, he began photographing his various properties in Switzerland and his town house in Paris, all of which served as the main setting for his many portraits. It is worth recalling that Louis Daguerre’s advertising for his new process, which appeared in 1838, makes clear that “anyone will, with the daguerreotype, create the view of his château or house in the country. One will form collections of all kinds, all the more precious in that art cannot imitate them in terms of the exactitude and perfection of the details…”[6] Finally, in 1854, Eynard commissioned Antonio Fontanesi to do twenty lithographs of Beaulieu which he published as an album.[7] This thoroughly exceptional collection, comprising Calame’s views, Eynard’s daguerreotypes, and Fontanesi’s lithographs, proves not only Eynard’s wish to immortalize his living environment, but also his desire to show it off and make it known far and wide. Even if a number of Vaudois property owners at the time commissioned views of their estates, including Fraid’Aigue (Saint-Prex), the Ban manor (Corsier-sur-Vevey), and the châteaux of Coppet and Guévaux (Mur), no other was as systematic and prolific in their approach.[8] Eynard, however, did not document all the buildings he possessed and only fourteen concern us here. Moreover, except for the nursery school in Gilly, Eynard did not include the buildings either he or his wife had funded for philanthropic reasons.[9] It is interesting to note that at Beaulieu, for example, the only annex that does not figure in the daguerreotypes is the no longer extant observatory, built in 1814 by his brother, Jacques, while at Fleuri, it is the rural outbuilding constructed by his nephew Alfred next to the manor house that was left out.

On the majority of Eynard’s daguerreotypes, architecture is used to frame both individual and group portraits. Like a theater backdrop, the main part it plays is to structure the composition. In several cases, however, the architectural representation predominates and the figures, who are hard to identify, are there to indicate the scale of the building or add life to the scene. The Palais Eynard, the Beaulieu manor house and some of its outbuildings are occasionally the only subject depicted. On several of these views, including the majority devoted to the Palais Eynard, left and right are not reversed thanks to the fairly complex use of a small mirror or a prism placed in front of the lens.

As mentioned above, Eynard’s daguerreotypes very rarely feature buildings that do not belong to him. There is the Château du Piple, near Paris, owned by the Hottinguer family (DE 055 and Musée de l’Elysée, 054040), a small brick-and-stone construction in Passy (2013 001 dag 050), perhaps a property owned by the Delessert family, and a certain Hôtel Méduse in Paris that I haven’t been able to identify (see in particular 2013 001 dag 102). Eynard’s correspondence, however, reveals that among the very first images he took in March and April 1840 figure several Roman monuments, including the arches of Constantine, Titus and Septimus Severus, the Trevi Fountain, and Trajan’s Forum.[10] None of these pieces have been found, although the Temple of Saturn is recognizable in one daguerreotype near which Eynard is seen posing with a touch of pride to his aspect (see 84.XT.255.38 and non localise rome doc).

Eynard’s body of work also includes four urban views of Geneva. Two immortalize the Promenade de la Treille and the rear façades of Rue des Granges (DE 005 and fao 38347). The two others, which are of a very high quality, form a kind of diptych representing the Bergues Bridge, Rousseau Island, and the Pâquis neighborhood (84.XT.255.24 and 84.XT.255.25). These are the only two daguerreotypes by Eynard that show the profound changes the City of Geneva was experiencing at the time. Apart from these two exceptions, the daguerreotypist did not in fact look to document ancient constructions before they were demolished, including the bastions that stood near his residence, or the new buildings springing up all over the city at the time (Musée Rath, Rue de la Corraterie, the riding school on Rue Saint-Léger, etc.).

Thus, Eynard depicted above all his domestic environment, family, and friends. Even if his approach differs greatly from Joseph-Philibert Girault de Prangey’s (the French daguerreotypist deliberately traveled to specific places to immortalize particular landscapes and buildings),[11] we can count him among the pioneers of architectural photography and his daguerreotypes are part of the first examples of this art in Switzerland to be conserved. His depictions of architecture are generally high quality and very well framed; lines are not distorted thanks to an appropriate angle for taking the image and sufficient distancing – even the use of a view camera that allowed the photographer to tilt or shift the lens. In Beaulieu, Eynard even had a kind of wooden scaffold built to counter the slope of the outdoor space (see 2013 001 dag 066).[12] Besides framing, which often integrates the building’s surroundings, Eynard mastered light and depth of field. In general, his views are sharp and correctly exposed.

The Palais Eynard (Rue de la Croix-Rouge 4)

History

The construction between 1817 and 1821 of the sumptuous Genevan residence that came to be called the Palais Eynard was a true feat that made a lasting impression.[13] Jean-Gabriel Eynard began by purchasing from the City of Geneva an undeveloped piece of land located between the 16^th-century defensive wall and the 18^th-century fortifications, that is inside the fortified belt around the city. This plot lay along the edge of the former “Belle Promenade” (today’s Promenade des Bastions), created in 1724-1725 and refurbished in Eynard’s day to accommodate the botanical garden.[14] For a quite a hefty sum, he obtained the right from the city authorities to build on that strategic site, arguing that his house would contribute to the embellishment of the city, notably by visually extending the botanical garden. Burdened with poor soil and somewhat swampy, the chosen location required significant earthworks, which were overseen by the canton’s chief engineer the future general Guillaume-Henri Dufour. The difference in the terrain’s levels, due to the presence of the old fortifications of the city, occasioned an original design. Abutting the defensive wall, the palace has two main entries located on two different levels. The piano nobile, or principle floor, which is reached via a fine external double staircase on the garden side of the site, is located below the street level, which is to its rear; that entry point boasts an imposing portico. This entry leads from the street to the private rooms, and from there residents could take the magnificent inner ceremonial staircase to reach the reception rooms that open onto the gardens.

For the design of their residence, Eynard and his wife turned to several architects, including Jean-Jacques Moll, from Biel; Jean-Pierre Noblet, from Rolle, who had worked on Beaulieu; Samuel Vaucher, from Geneva, and the Florentine Giovanni Salucci. Anna Eynard also submitted several façade designs that are a far cry from what was eventually built. While in all likelihood the final design was a collective creation and a synthesis of several different proposals, the contribution of Giovanni Salucci (1769-1845) proved decisive. Indeed, Eynard’s recommendations would later lead to Salucci’s entering the service of the King of Württemberg William I. The outcome of a collaboration among a handful of talented architects, the Palais Eynard is a particularly stately edifice, especially in an urban context. It blends a number of influences, notably Italian (Palladio), English (Neo-Palladianism), and especially French (Classicism and Neo-Classicism).[15]

Starting in 1821, Eynard drew on the talents of a team of Italian and Ticinese artists to decorate the interior of his palace. The rooms on the ground floor were done in grisaille trompe-l’oeil painted by the Tuscans Giuseppe Vincenzo Lodovico Spampani (1768-1828) and his assistant Santi Soldaini, both of whom had worked on Beaulieu, while the rooms on the upper floors were decorated by Giuseppe Domenico Trolli and the Ticinese painter Marco Antonio Trifoglio (or Trefolgi) (1782-1845). The Palais Eynard remained in the family until it was sold to the City of Geneva in 1891 and renovated several times, notably between 1981 and 1986 in order to serve as the Hôtel municipal, a formal city building and home to the weekly meetings of Geneva’s Administrative Council.

The views of the Palais Eynard and its surroundings

In 1833-1836, Eynard was well aware of the beauty of the sumptuous residence he had just built and commissioned a number of outdoor and indoor views from the young painter Alexandre Calame (1810-1864).[16] The palace also figures in several tourist-oriented works by Jean DuBois. Eynard began immortalizing the building in turn in the 1840s. Some fifteen daguerreotypes feature it, the majority of which, moreover, do not reverse the image. Around ten of them show not one human figure, a fairly rare circumstance in his output since Eynard readily combined portraiture and architectural views when he wasn’t adding a few people to indicate a building’s scale. The absence of figures doubtless reflects the importance Eynard granted his Genevan residence. In general it is partially depicted; only one view taken from the west shows it in its entirety, including the roof (84.XT.255.21). The southwestern façade, which faces the garden, is visible on a dozen daguerreotypes and usually pictured in three-quarters view because of the trees growing in front of the building; this point of view has the advantage of highlighting the impressive series of columns punctuating it. The northeastern entrance façade, on the side of today’s Rue de la Croix-Rouge, only figures in two daguerreotypes (84.XT.255.27 and ng 301); on one of them (ng 301), Eynard is standing before one of the engaged columns flanking the entrance, joining self-portraiture as the master of the house to a depiction of architecture. The northwestern façade is seen in eight daguerreotypes, most often partially; the southeastern only twice.

Some fifteen individual and group portraits were taken in the summer house located on the north of the palace and boasting several copies of ancient statues. The individuals depicted are mainly members of Eynard’s family or his close friends but the images also show servants, the architect Gabriel Diodati, and several celebrities who were passing through Geneva, including the French journalist and writer Emile Souvestre.

A number of daguerreotypes depict the botanical garden, which was laid out by Augustin Pyrame de Candolle near to the palace in 1817. On two of the images, dated 1843, we can see the orangery built in 1818-1819 by Guillaume-Henri Dufour, who drew his inspiration from the one standing in Monpellier’s botanical garden, for which Candolle, moreover, had once served as director (84.XT.255.60 and DE 016).[17] These images form a precious body of evidence detailing a construction that has been razed and replaced by the International Monument to the Reformation, or the Reformation Wall. It is interesting to note as well that the busts of famous Genevans once located in front of the orangery, clearly visible in old photographs,[18] don’t seem to figure in Eynard’s two daguerreotypes.

The “little Eynard house” on Rue Jean-Daniel-Colladon 2

Between 1829 and 1830, the Eynards built a house that contained several apartments, opposite their Genevan palace, on today’s Rue Jean-Daniel-Colladon.[19] Anna Eynard took an active part in this project; an elevation (scale drawing on a vertical plane presenting a vertical depiction) of the main façade that is conserved in a family album can be attributed to her, not to mention a letter in her hand, dated 27 November 1831, in which she speaks of herself as the “architect” of this building.[20] Nevertheless, it was the contractor and architect Joseph Amoudruz who was in charge of carrying out the project. The main façade of the building boasts three large Venetian windows separated by niches under semicircular arches that recall those adorning Beaulieu’s southern wing, completed in 1827. This house is partly seen in the background of a daguerreotype in which the Palais Eynard is shown in its entirety (84.XT.255.21), as well as in a watercolor by Calame.

The Beaulieu manor house (Gilly, Route de Genève 68)

History

In July 1808, Jean-Gabriel Eynard and his brother, Jacques, acquired joint ownership of Beaulieu in the Commune of Gilly.[21] The estate comprised a winemaker’s house with a master apartment on the first floor (this building is now known as the Gentilhommière, a small manor house or country seat in English), and two annexes, a barn and a stable.

Between 1810 and 1813, the Eynards had a new residence built from a design by the architect Jean-Pierre Noblet, from Rolle. Partly hidden by two later additions, this building appears in its original state in various drawings conserved in Eynard family albums and in a lithograph by Jean DuBois. The rather simple exterior presents a stark contrast to the very luxurious interior decorated with a number of paintings by the Italian artists Giuseppe Spampani and his assistant Santi Soldaini, who would work a few years later on the Palais Eynard. The sumptuous grisaille decorative scheme of the semicircular staircase connecting the various floors depicts divinities and famous people, along with scenes involving the arts, sciences, and work in the fields, a theme that was dear to Eynard, who conjured it up in several of his daguerreotypes. Three marble fireplaces with columns are very likely from the workshop of the famous Italian sculptor Lorenzo Bartolini; an invoice made out in Carrara on 28 March 1813 mentions the delivery of one of them.[22] Between 1819 and 1822, a service wing was built on the western side with the construction being overseen by Jean-Pierre Noblet but from designs by Anna Eynard. The layout features a kitchen and orangery on the ground floor, a “forest sitting room” (as Anna Eynard dubbed it – its French windows give on to the neighboring woods) and various rooms on the floor above that. The latter open onto a gallery that is protected by a valenced sheet-metal roof supported by metal stanchions in the form of halberds that poke through the roofing. These ornamental ironwork elements, while altogether exceptional, were eventually eliminated and are only known today thanks to several daguerreotypes (2013 001 dag 062, 2013 001 dag 063, 2013 001 dag 103 and 84.XT.267.3). They may have been inspired by the halberd-shaped weather vane that adorned the former Molard Tower in Geneva, which was redone in 1773.[23]

In 1827, a new main building boasting an imposing neoclassical façade was attached to the southeast side of the existing manor house. A family album contains an elevation of this façade, which appears to be in Anna’s hand. While it differs from the final design, the drawing already features three large Venetian windows on the ground floor separated by niches under semicircular arches. Three other unsigned proposals are conserved in the Centre d’iconographie of the Bibliothèque de Genève (CIG); they are attributed to the Ticinese architect Luigi Bagutti, who was very active between Geneva and Lausanne at the time. Although they do not correspond to what was eventually built, they all contain elements of the future structure. Again in 1827, an entrance hall surmounted by a terrace and flanked by two arcades with three-centered arches (also known as basket-handle arches) was added on the northeastern side, after a design proposal that also appears to be in Anna Eynard’s hand.

Beaulieu’s new neoclassical façade was given three French windows in the form of Venetian windows, albeit quite monumental ones. The one placed at the center was topped by a black embroidered cloth awning that can be seen in numerous daguerreotypes. Inside, the 1827 building boasts, on the ground floor, three ceremonial rooms that open onto the lake. These spaces were given a painted decorative scheme that has not been attributed with any certainty, although unquestionably it is the work of Ticinese or Italian artists.[24] In 1827, that is from the moment it was built, the Beaulieu manor house enjoyed a hot-air heating system that was very cutting edge for the region. This system “distributed heat through pipes with outlets in all the main rooms and the stairway… These ducts were fed by a brick furnace located in the basement” that has been conserved to this day.[25]

The views of the Beaulieu manor house

In March 1840, Eynard began photographing his Beaulieu estate.[26] Of the known daguerreotypes, over 250 were taken on this property, mainly around the manor house itself. The images are portraits above all and much more rarely genre scenes and depictions of architecture in the strict sense of the term. The main façade, located on the southeast of the building, appears in its entirety in about ten daguerreotypes. Six were in all likelihood taken from atop some sort of scaffold mentioned in a note written on the reverse of one of them (2013 001 dag 066, “View of the house on a scaffold”). This temporary construction, estimated to have stood six meters high given the slope of the terrain,[27] allowed a daguerreotypist to shoot the building practically straight on without distorting the lines of the architecture. Only two views of the manor house are devoid of human figures (2013 001 dag 074 and DE 015), while their presence remains very much of secondary importance, merely anecdotal even in a few others (for example, 84.XT.255.53, lm 79852, fao 38346, nc 01).

Most of the group portraits were taken on the terrace in front of Beaulieu’s main façade. It is worth recalling that Lerebours’s treatise on photography advises readers to place subjects “on a terrace, avoiding exposure to the direct rays of the sun.”[28] Several scenes are perfectly structured by one of the Venetian windows pictured straight on, an angle that also probably required the installation of a small scaffold.

Around thirty daguerreotypes were taken before the southwestern lateral veranda, whose columns Eynard used to frame his compositions or hold the large painted backdrop that he occasionally placed in the background. These daguerreotypes constitute then a valuable indication of the nearly original state of the Beaulieu manor house, notably its façade on the lakeside of the building. Thanks to the early photographs, it became clear that on the ground floor the original fluted bases of the columns were later replaced by Tuscan bases and the order of the upstairs statues was slightly modified. Moreover, the beautiful arabesque decorative scheme painted on the inside shutters faded over the years and the outside embroidered cloth awning no longer exists. The southwestern façade is also well documented, unlike the two other secondary ones, which were never depicted.

As far as I know, Eynard took no interior views of Beaulieu, or his other properties, an endeavor that would have required the use of much more cumbersome equipment. On the other hand, he had access to the watercolors Alexandre Calame had done between 1833 and 1836, and these bear witness to the original decorations and installations of this sumptuous residence. In 1854, Eynard commissioned the Italian artist Antonio Fontanesi to do twenty or so lithographs on the whole of the estate which were to be published in an album; several were inspired by his own daguerreotypes.[29]

Several of Eynard’s views show the Beaulieu park. Most of its beautiful trees have since disappeared while certain paths have been either eliminated or moved. On seven stereoscopic views done between 1852 and 1854, we see a small fountain with a central waterspout located to the west of the manor house; the fountain might have been built shortly before that period but has since disappeared.

The outbuildings of Beaulieu

Practically all of Beaulieu’s outbuildings were photographed by Eynard, although many of them not nearly as frequently as the manor house itself. Excepting the aviary, which the daguerreotypist seems to have favored, the outbuildings mainly served as a background and frame for his portraits of servants or genre scenes.

The Gentilhommière

The Gentilhommière (its recent name) is the oldest building on the Beaulieu property.[30] Probably dating from the 1790s, it stood on the land prior to Jean-Gabriel and Jacques Eynard’s purchase of the estate. It contained lodgings for the winegrower and various workrooms on the ground floor, and a master apartment on the floor above. With a nearly square floorplan, the building features two floors beneath an imposing half-hip roof. The corners boast toothed quoins and a veranda on the southwestern side, very likely from the start. The main façade, facing the lake, is punctuated by two three-centered arch doors that suggest the agricultural and viticultural function of the ground floor, while the first floor boasts numerous segmental arch (or scheme arch) windows.

This building figures in three of Eynard’s daguerreotypes, albeit very partially in two of them (2013 001 dag 094 and 84.XT.255.81); on the third, which is not reversed, it can be seen in the farm’s background (DE 009). A lithograph by Fontanesi shows the four western bays of the Gentilhommière and its veranda.

The farm

A barn and stable which were probably built in 1790-1800 served as annexes of the Gentilhommière.[31] Around 1840, Eynard had this building with its almost square floorplan enlarged on the southwestern side with the a new section that created a living space and a stable. The gable façade of this addition boasts a fairly original porch that is integrated within the main building and includes a fountain. Above this, the gable was decorated with a paneled barrel vault inspired by Bernese architecture. Fashionable starting in the 1820s in large estates in Vaud and Geneva,[32] this decorative element has since been eliminated unfortunately. It is worth recalling that in 1822 the architect Giovanni Salucci, who came up with the design for the Palais Eynard, designed and built a Bernese farm for the King of Württemberg, William I, a friend of Jean-Gabriel Eynard who had visited Beaulieu in 1816.[33] In the 1940s, the farm was transformed; new openings were notably built into the existing structure while the paneled barrel vault and part of the veranda were eliminated.

This structure is partially visible in four of Eynard’s daguerreotypes, including two stereoscopic images. Three of them, reversed, depict employees at work. One of these, showing two oxen drawing a cart (2013 001 dag 101), served as the model for a lithograph commissioned from Antonio Fontanesi in 1854. The fourth daguerreotype features no human beings; it shows the southwestern gable while the Gentilhommière can be seen in the background (DE 009). The image is not reversed thanks to the use of a small mirror or prism in front of the lens.

The stable-shed and dovecote

In 1827, the Eynards had an annex built at Beaulieu to serve as a stable, shed, and henhouse-dovecote, with an attached apiary on the southeast.[34] This two-story building with a pitched roof is bordered by a wooden veranda and gallery above that running along the southwest. The building comprises in fact two blocks of unequal depth set side by side; the one on the southeast, which is narrower, houses the dovecote. It calls to mind a chapel thanks to its modest decorative belfry, Gothic arches, and blind trefoil arcade. Although the decorative scheme of its main façade was partly simplified and the elegant exterior pigeon cages eliminated, the belfry subsists, as does the blind arcade. The southwestern veranda-gallery unfortunately collapsed sometime in the past; only its posts were still in place in 2020. This lateral façade can be seen in eight daguerreotypes and above all served as a background for genre scenes and portraits of servants. However, in one of them, taken in front of the doors of the shed sporting a diamond-shaped decorative scheme, we see Eynard seated in one of his horse-drawn buggies (Musée de Rochester, rochester 1973 9 2 doc). As for the delicate lakeside façade and its belfry, it figures in a fine stereoscopic view from which Eynard commissioned Antonio Fontanesi to do a lithograph in 1854 (84.XT.255.70).

The aviary

In 1847, a new and especially ornate annex, along the lines of a folly, was built to the north of the manor house.[35] We possess the original design of the main façade and a section (a drawing showing a cut through the body of a building) that can be attributed to Anna Eynard.[36] Originally this small structure housed a wine cellar and a woodshed on the ground floor, an aviary that extended into a terrace on the floor above, and finally an attic and dovecote just beneath the roof. The building’s elaborate decorative scheme combines neogothic and picturesque elements inspired by two styles, what was known as the “rustic à l’italienne” (brick toothed quoins, raised terrace parapet wall done in barrel tiles), and Swiss chalets (fretwork brackets on the eve ends). It was simplified, however, in the early 20^th century. On the southeastern side, for example, the trellis structure that subdivided the large arch on the ground floor was eliminated, as was the elegant bow window that served as an aviary. The trefoil frieze underscoring the roof sections has disappeared from the side of the building facing the lake but it has been conserved on the back. This annex is especially photogenic and figures in fourteen daguerreotypes; one was even taken before work was completed (ides 55 doc), a unicum in Eynard’s output of daguerreotypes. Eleven show the perfectly symmetrical main façade in its entirety; the three others focus on the ground floor arch and its delicate trellis structure. These images are mostly group portraits, including two of servants; a number of them bring together family or friends of Eynard and his employees. One reversed view was the model for a lithograph by Antonio Fontanesi (2013 001 dag 068).

The woodshed

A woodshed was eventually added to the Beaulieu annexes between 1840 and 1852.[37] Decorated with cutout wooden elements in the style of Swiss chalets, the woodshed is seen in a stereoscopic image taken in December 1852 (2013 001 dag 088). Abandoned for some years now, it has largely collapsed unfortunately (seen by the author in October 2019).

The greenhouses

Two greenhouses that are no longer standing can be seen in a stereoscopic image taken in Beaulieu in all likelihood (2013 001 dag 076). Neither would be the one built in 1834 that boasted a tile roof and was demolished in 1860, or those, in principle, that were put up in 1857 and 1860, since Eynard had stopped practicing daguerreotype photography by then.[38] The terrain, steeply sloping and at the top of which the two structures are standing, suggests a plot of land located in the Commune of Bursinel, which is to the west of the gardener’s cottage, a property that Jean-Gabriel and Jacques Eynard owned in 1835. Yet an examination of the records and cadastral maps of the commune could not confirm this hypothesis.[39]

Petit Fleur d’Eau (Rolle), Route de Genève 75

In 1825-1826, Eynard had a single house built by the lake which he intended for Count Ioannis Antonios Kapodistrias, the Greek statesman he had befriended at the Congress of Vienna who convinced Eynard to support Greek independence.[40] In 1829, Kapodistrias, who knew the area, wrote that he was looking forward to going there to spend his “later years,” which sadly was not to be for he was assassinated in October 1831. Several façade designs, possibly in Anna Eynard’s hand, are conserved in a family album.

In the late 19^th or early 20^th century, an entrance porch was added on the northwest and the pond on that side of the house was eliminated. Between 1928 and 1931, the building was remodeled and enlarged by the architects Jack Cornaz and Walter Baumann, who placed a pediment above the door flanked by Ionic columns, created a balcony on the side facing the lake, and added two lateral wings. Between 1976 and 1978, the architect Italo Ferrari, who had worked on the 1930 renovation, built two new wings set at right angles.

This elegant neoclassical house with Palladian influences is accessible by a treelined road which Eynard photographed between 1852 and 1855 (2013 001 dag 078). Initially having a square floorplan, the structure has a single floor under a pitched roof with gable-pediments. It was built above an arch under which the lake’s waters once freely flowed, filling a small pond upstream. Despite its relative modest size, this house, when it was built, contained a vestibule behind the entrance, a kitchen, a room, and three formal rooms facing the lake, not to mention a sitting room in the middle.[41]

The Petit Fleur d’Eau figures in a stereoscopic view taken sometime between 1852 and 1855 (2013 001 dag 077). A lithograph and drawing by Jean DuBois, the latter dated October 1829, also depict the structure, as do three lithographs by Fontanesi (1854).

Fleuri (Rolle), Route de Genève 60

The Fleuri manor house was built around 1833 by Jean-Gabriel Eynard for his nephew Alfred, after a design most likely conceived by Anna Eynard.[42] Indeed, the floorplans for the ground and first floors as well as an elevation for the main façade, conserved in a family album, can be attributed to her. Extensive changes were made in 1945-1946 under the direction of the architects Paul Bournoud and Joseph Scala, who eliminated part of the exterior decorative elements and modernized the interior.

Comprising two floors beneath a pitched roof that extends well beyond the outer walls, Fleuri boasts a wooden-columned veranda and gallery that runs around the entire structure. The building combines a regular neoclassical design with neogothic elements and borrowings from Swiss chalets, notably in the veranda and gallery, and the overhangs with curved fretwork roof supports. The gable on the lakeside of the building once featured a religious phrase, HEUREUSE LA NATION DONT L’ETERNEL EST LE DIEU (“happy the nation for which the Eternal is God”), underscored by a series of blind gothic arches, all of which was later eliminated. The beautiful shutters heightened with a grisaille neogothic decorative scheme have been conserved, although taken down from where they hung.[43]

Fleuri’s southeastern façade, shown in three-quarters view, figures in the background of two stereoscopic group portraits (2013 001 dag 104 and p 1973 237), as well as in one of the lithographs commissioned from Antonio Fontanesi in 1854. These documents bear witness to the beautiful original decorative scheme which is no longer extant. On the other hand, Eynard did not photograph the Fleuri annex that his nephew Alfred had built around 1836 after designs that can be attributed to the architect François Recordon.[44] It is partly visible in a lithograph by Fontanesi featuring the rear façade of the manor house.

Grand Fleur d’Eau (Rolle), Route de Genève 71

The Grand Fleur d’Eau manor house was built around 1836 by Jean-Gabriel Eynard for his nephew and son-in-law Charles Eynard.[45] In 1914, the structure was thoroughly remodeled by the architects Eugène Monod and Alphonse Laverrière, who enlarged the lateral verandas and galleries. This neoclassical-style country house is reached by a beautiful treelined road. With a nearly square floorplan, the building features two floors under a pitched roof framing two pediments with modillions (ornate brackets often seen under a cornice, for example, which they help support). The lateral façades have Tuscan columned porticos while on the northwestern side, the main entrance is preceded by a porch. On the southeastern side, the side facing the lake, a religious message was painted on the gable-pediment, just below a Venetian window.

The Grand Fleur d’Eau can be seen on three daguerreotypes, which combine the depiction of architecture with group portraiture, and on a lithograph by Antonio Fontanesi. One of the daguerreotypes shows the entrance façade on the northwest (2013 001 dag 097); another in stereoscopic view, one of the lateral porticos in three-quarters view (2013 001 dag 085); on the third and last one, just a fragment of the lakeside façade can be seen (84.XT.255.65).

The Grand Fleur d’Eau annex, called the Vieux Fleur d’Eau (Rolle), Route de Genève 69

In 1841, an especially ornate structure was built as an annex of the Grand Fleur d’Eau, probably from designs by the architect François Recordon.[46] The new building housed a stable, a laundry, a shed and a woodshed on the ground floor, a room, a hayloft, an étendage, or room for hanging clean wash to dry, and probably a dovecote in the attic. Around 1879 this annex was extended in the back and raised slightly in order to add an apartment. Probably around the same time, the surprising decorative scheme boasting neogothic and Moorish elements was eliminated.

Looking a bit like a folly, this annex comprised a floor and a half under a pitched roof. Heightened with toothed brick quoins, the structure boasts gothic windows. The main façade, whose gable is fitted with a Venetian window, held a balcony that rested on columns spanned by ogee arches of Moorish inspiration with openwork trefoil spandrels.

This annex can be seen in two stereoscopic views which highlight its remarkable, though no longer extant, decorative scheme (2013 001 dag 069 and 84.XT.255.80), as well as in two watercolors that are attributed to Woldemar Hottenroth, Alfred Eynard’s brother-in-law.

The Gilly nursery school (razed)

Between 1839 and 1840, Anna Eynard had a nursery school built in Gilly and provided funds for the teacher’s salary.[47] The building was remodeled in 1850 with the addition of an annex on the back. This nursery school, which also served as a “convalescent home,”[48] was eventually razed in 1960.

This building combined a neoclassical design with neogothic and Swiss chalet elements, like the Fleuri manor house. The nursery school boasted two floors beneath a pitched roof, with a wooden-post veranda under a gallery on three of its sides. It is featured in one daguerreotype in which we see pupils and a number of adults standing in several groups along the gallery (2013 001 dag 098). On the ground floor Eynard is seen posing with the youngest pupils, as if he were their teacher.

The Eynards’ town house in Paris, Rue de Londres 27 (razed)

In 1829, Eynard acquired a town house in Paris at Rue de Londres 27, a relatively new building that had been built in the 9^th arrondissement just three years earlier. The street was part of the so-called Europe neighborhood in which the Saint-Lazare train station, the first train station in Île-de-France, would be built in 1837. Yet Jean-Gabriel and his wife would only begin living in their Parisian residence in 1837, despite the myriad advantages it offered, as this letter dated 29 September of that year makes plain:

“We arrived a few days ago and are nicely accommodated in a fine town house I’ve had for 8 years, which I neither rented out, nor sold, having always intended to live in it… we finally made up our minds to furnish one floor and we find ourselves so perfectly comfortable that we shall keep this town house which is quite warm, very convenient and in a neighborhood that is very quiet; it’s located on Rue de Londres, entre cour et jardin [literally between court and garden, i.e., built with a courtyard on one side and a garden on the other], opposite the fine premises of the Tivoli baths; we have a connecting door with the beautiful and large garden; the architecture of our town house is elegant; it is built of ashlar, the ground floor is beautiful in its layout and has quite high ceilings; in every way it is a wonderful town house, and quite pleasant to live in. The exposure is admirable, facing directly south, and our friends who come to see us cannot understand that we took so long to live in it, and agree that the neighborhood is charming and not at all remote, indeed, one is on the boulevards in no time.”

After the Revolution of 1848, Jean-Gabriel and Anna Eynard apparently stayed only occasionally in their Parisian town house on Rue de Londres and sold it in 1858. The façade facing the garden, with its polygonal avant-corps (a projecting part from the main mass of a building) topped by a terrace, is depicted in its entirety in only one daguerreotype (p 1973 223). On the other hand, over thirty portraits were taken in front of this façade (easily recognized thanks to its windows fitted with shutters), or before the trellised enclosing wall. Besides the members of his family (the de Regny and de Traz families, Bouthillier de Beaumont, etc.) and friends or acquaintances passing through, Eynard immortalized various well-known figures of the day in this setting. The daguerreotypes feature, for example, Timothy Ha’alilio, the royal secretary of Hawaii (2013 001 dag 044, rm 017 and hawaï 01 doc), the optician and daguerreotypist Noël Marie Paymal Lerebours, along with the amateur photographer Adrien Constant-Delessert (2013 001 dag 037 and rm 010), the Greek general and statesman Ioannis Kolettis (rm 005), Victor de Broglie, the third duke of Broglie, with his son Albert (DE 081), the member of the Council of State Jean-Jacques Kunkler (cm 01), and the Hungarian Count Antal Apponyi (2013 001 dag 045).

[1] Michèle Bouvier-Bron, Une jeunesse en Italie, les années de formation de Jean-Gabriel Eynard, Geneva, Slatkine, Société d’histoire et d’archéologie de Genève, 2019, 232-240.

[2] According to an epigraphic plaque on the eastern façade of the Palais before 1825; the original inscription, in Latin and Greek is quoted in French by Waldemar Deonna in “L’architecte du palais Eynard,” Genava, 11, 1933, 215-218. As for the Eynards, “amateur architects or lovers of architecture?” see Paul Bissegger, Entre Arcadie et Panthéon : grandes demeures néoclassiques aux environs de Rolle, Lausanne, Bibliothèque historique vaudoise, 121, 2001, 235-237.

[3] André Corboz, “Le palais Eynard à Genève : un design architectural,” Genava, 23, 1975, 195-275, specifically 275; see also Deonna, “Architecte,” and William Speidel, “Das Palais Eynard,” Genava, 11, 1933, 219-223.

[4] Alville (or Alix von Wattenwyl), Anna Eynard-Lullin et l’époque des congrès et des révolutions, Lausanne, P. Feissly, 1955, 320, and Grégoire Extermann, “D’Adhémar Fabri à Pictet de Rochemont : les gloires genevoises du palais de l’Athénée,” Regards croisés sur les arts à Genève (1846-1896), ed. Frédéric Hueber and Sylvain Wenger, Geneva, Georg, 2019, 151-182, specifically 159-160.

[5] Paul Bissegger, Le Moyen Âge romantique au Pays de Vaud, 1825-1850, Lausanne, Bibliothèque historique vaudoise, 79, Lausanne, 1985, 28.

[6] Quoted in Quentin Bajac and Dominique Planchon-de Font-Réaulx, Le Daguerréotype français : un objet photographique, Paris, Réunion des Musées nationaux, 2003, 43 and 384.

[7] Antonio Fontanesi, Beaulieu, villa Eynard au bord du Lac de Genève, Geneva, Pillet et Cougnard, 1854.

[8] Personal communications, Paul Bissegger and Monique Fontannaz.

[9] On the Eynards’ philanthropic work, see Bissegger, Arcadie, 238-239.

[10] Philippe Kaenel, “Je crois que l’art est fait pour quelque chose de plus,” Art + Architecture, 4, 2000, 6-14, in particular, p. 6 and p. 12, note 7.

[11] Joseph-Philibert Girault de Prangey crisscrossed Switzerland photographing prestigious monuments as well as rural houses and recent constructions like the Château de l’Aile in Vevey; see Miroir d’argent, daguerréotypes de Girault de Prangey, ed. Christophe Mauron, Geneva, Slatkine and Musée gruérien, 2008.

[12] Nicolas Crispini, Genève en relief & autres faits divers, Geneva, Slatkine, 2015, 12.

[13] Leïla el-Wakil, Bâtir la campagne, Genève 1800-1860, Geneva, Georg, 1988, 190-200 and 270-272, for the Palais Eynard (and in particular pp. 196-197 for this urge to make an impression). For the history of the Palais Eynard, see also Corboz, “Design architectural”; Deonna, “Architecte”; Paul Eynard, Le palais Eynard, Geneva, Slatkine, 1986; Véronique Palfi, Le palais Eynard, patrimoine de la Ville de Genève, Geneva, Ville de Genève, 2017; Speidel, “Das Palais”; and Album Eynard, manuscript conserved at the Bibliothèque de Genève (BGE), Ms. fr. 1085.

[14] Isabelle Brunier, “La ‘Belle Promenade’, puis promenade des Bastions (origine et premières étapes),” Les monuments d’art et d’histoire du canton de Genève, v. IV, Genève, espaces et édifices publics, ed. Isabelle Brunier, Bern, Société d’histoire de l’art en Suisse, 2016, 45 and 46. Véronique Palfi notes the following on the Eynard’s purchase of this plot of land, “This bold move, no one among Geneva’s citizens would have dared to make it because the site was subject to not only military constraints, but public use as well,” Palfi, Patrimoine, 3.

[15] Corboz, “Design architectural,” 258-269, and Palfi, Patrimoine, 14.

[16] El-Wakil, Bâtir, 200.

[17] David Ripoll, “L’orangerie et les serres du jardin botanique, promenade des Bastions (démolies),” Les monuments d’art et d’histoire du canton de Genève, v. IV, Genève, espaces et édifices publics, ed. Isabelle Brunier, Bern, Société d’histoire de l’art en Suisse, 2016, 259-260.

[18] Extermann, “Gloires genevoises,” photograph of the greenhouse, 176.

[19] Leïla el-Wakil, “Architecture et urbanisme à Genève sous la Restauration,” Genava, 25, 1977, 172 and 173.

[20] “My husband, being overwhelmed by urgent work for Greece and whose heart is taken up with defending the memory of a friend has asked me, being the architect of the house, to deal directly with you, Sirs” (AEG, Travaux AA 57, 441, personal communication by David Ripoll).

[21] On the Beaulieu estate, see Bissegger, Arcadie, 219-298.

[22] This invoice is conserved in a family album.

[23] Les monuments d’art et d’histoire du canton de Genève, v. I, La Genève sur l’eau, ed. Philippe Broillet, Basel, Société d’histoire de l’art en Suisse, 1997, 282 (text by Isabelle Brunier).

[24] Bissegger, Arcadie, 282.

[25] Bissegger, Arcadie, 417.

[26] Bissegger, Arcadie, 426, note 1, BGE, Ms. suppl. 1848, 7 March 1840.

[27] Crispini, Genève en relief, 12.

[28] Noël-Paymal Lerebours, Traité de photographie, derniers perfectionnements apportés aux daguerréotypes, 4^th ed. Paris, 1843, 72 (accessible online at gallica.bnf.fr).

[29] Fontanesi 1854, Beaulieu; see also Kaenel, “Je crois.”

[30] Bissegger, Arcadie, 299-300.

[31] Bissegger, Arcadie, 302-304.

[32] Isabelle Roland, Isabelle Ackermann, Marta Hans-Moëvi. and Dominique Zumkeller, Les maisons rurales du canton de Genève, Geneva, Slatkine, Société suisse des traditions populaires, 2006, 219 and 220.

[33] Hans-Martin Gubler, “Ein Berner Bauernhaus für den König von Württemberg,” Nos Monuments d’art et d’histoire, 4, 1979, 380-395, and Bissegger, Arcadie, 383.

[34] Bissegger, Arcadie, 305-309, and Bissegger, Moyen Âge, 32.

[35] Bissegger, Arcadie, 307-311, and Bissegger Moyen Âge, 32.

[36] Arcadie, 309 and 310..

[37] Arcadie, 310-311.

[38] On these greenhouses, see Bissegger, Arcadie, 232.

[39] Archives of the Canton of Vaud, Gb 327/c, map of 1835, and Gf 327/3, building registry of 1840 to 1877.

[40] Bissegger, Arcadie, 312-316.

[41] Floorplan conserved in the Archives of the Canton of Vaud, AMH B 336.

[42] Bissegger, Arcadie, 316-321, and Bissegger, Moyen Âge, 28-31.

[43] Illustrations in Bissegger, Moyen Âge, 30.

[44] Bissegger, Arcadie, 319-321.

[45] Bissegger, Arcadie, 320-324, and Bissegger, Moyen Âge, 31-32.

[46] Bissegger, Arcadie, 325-326; floorplans conserved in the Archives of the Canton of Vaud, PP 388.

[47] Bissegger, Arcadie, 239-241, Bissegger Moyen Âge, 31.

[48] BGE, Ms. suppl. 1958, folio 9, 27 May 1844, letter from Anna Eynard to her husband in which she tells him that “this year you told me I could carry out my wish for an infirmary for ill children in Geneva, and a convalescent home in Gilly.”