# 34393
PATERSON BROS. [BLONDIN, Charles, 1824-1897]
Le Chevalier Blondin (Hero of Niagara.)
$220.00 AUD
[Title from caption in the image]. Albumen print photograph, carte de visite format, 103 x 63 mm, verso with imprint of ‘Paterson Brothers, Portrait Rooms, 19 Bourke St. East, Melbourne’; studio blind stamp at lower edge; the albumen print, although a copy print, is in very good condition; the mount is clean and stable.
The celebrated French tightrope walker Charles Blondin (born Jean Francois Gravelet, 1824-1897) made a successful crossing of the Niagara Falls in 1859. In 1874 he visited Australia, where he performed in Sydney and Melbourne. Even at the age of 50, he was still agile enough to thrill spectators with one of his most famous stunts: cooking and eating an omelette on a tightrope high above the ground
Paterson Brothers probably paid a fee for the right to reproduce this image, which was originally taken by a French studio, and would have marketed the carte as a souvenir during the famous aerialist’s 1874 tour.