Voir Tahiti - Premières photographies 1859-1870

At the musée du quai Branly - Jacques Chirac, the exhibition Voir Tahiti brings together photographs of Polynesia taken between 1859 and 1870 by Gustave Viaud and Paul Émile Miot. Negatives, vintage prints, positives and enlargements offer a chance to compare not only the images made by these two naval officers, but also the processes they used to produce them.

Viaud, a surgeon based in Tahiti, worked with paper negatives. He photographed landscapes and vegetation and, in 1859, made a portrait of Teriimaevarua II, Queen of Bora Bora. Long held by the family of the photographer, who was Pierre Loti’s older brother, this collection entered the museum’s holdings in 2023.

Around ten years later, Miot used collodion glass plates to photograph the coasts, local people and the royal family in Tahiti and the Marquesas Islands. Bringing the two bodies of work together reveals differences in framing and image quality. By displaying negatives alongside prints, the exhibition sheds light on the photographic work behind these early depictions of the archipelago.

Visitor information
- Atelier Martine Aublet.
- Tuesday to Sunday, 10:30 am to 7 pm; until 10 pm on Thursdays.
- Open on Mondays during school holidays, except in July and August.
- Closed on 25 December. Closes at 6 pm on 24 and 31 December.
- Free admission on the first Sunday of the month.