Miguel ALÉO (1824-circa 1900). View of Villefranche-sur-mer.... - Lot 57 - Marie-Saint Germain

Miguel ALÉO (1824-circa 1900). View of Villefranche-sur-mer. Albumin print mounted on card, 32 x 17 cm. Signed lower left in red ink. Dry photographer's stamp in the center margin. - Views of Villefranche-sur-mer, circa 1864. Two albumin prints mounted on card, 22 x 16 and 25.5 x 19.5 cm. Photographer's dry stamp in the center margin on one of the prints. Born in Havana, Miguel Aléo became a photographer in Nice around 1855. He alternated between Paris, his home in Meudon (Bellevue) and trips to the Riviera. He met Alphonse Davanne, a resident of Menton, who introduced him to the Société française de photographie and made him secretary of its newsletter. Already known for the quality of his landscapes, which won him a medal at the London Universal Exhibition in 1862, Aléo produced a remarkable photographic report on Corsica in 1865, for the inauguration of the monument erected to the glory of Napoleon I and his brothers in Ajaccio. Some prints of Aléo's views of Corsica, sold by Rocca-Tartarini, bear Alphonse Davanne's dry stamp on their mounts, suggesting a collaboration between these two photographers. Miguel Aléo took part in SFP exhibitions between 1859 and 1870, as well as in the London World's Fair of 1862 and the Paris World's Fair of 1867 (3 prints in all).