Pierre Joseph Rossier was a pioneering Swiss photographer. He was commissioned by the London firm of Negretti and Zambra to travel to Asia and document the progress of the Anglo-French troops in the Second Opium War. He remained in Asia for several years, producing the first commercial photographs of China, the Philippines, Japan and Siam. He is buried in the village of Grandsivaz, a small village in the Canton of Fribourg, Switzerland.
About Pierre Rossier in brief
Pierre Joseph Rossier was a pioneering Swiss photographer. He was commissioned by the London firm of Negretti and Zambra to travel to Asia and document the progress of the Anglo-French troops in the Second Opium War. He remained in Asia for several years, producing the first commercial photographs of China, the Philippines, Japan and Siam. He trained Ueno Hikoma, Maeda Genzō, Horie Kuwajirō, as well as lesser known members of the first generation of Japanese photographers. Rossier is an important figure in the early history of photography not only because of his own images, but also because of the critical impact of his teaching. Until very recently, little was known about Rossier; even his given name was a mystery. His albumen photographs, which include stereographs and cartes-de-visite, comprise portraits, cityscapes, and landscapes. He is buried in the village of Grandsivaz, a small village in the Canton of Fribourg, Switzerland, and is buried next to his wife, Marie-Madeleine Rossier, who was born in 1829 in the same village. The couple had ten children and had no children of their own.
The family moved to Switzerland in 1855 and Rossier became a teacher at a school in a neighbouring village. In 1858 or 1859 Rossier travelled to the Philippines where he visited and photographed the Taal Volcano. By 1859 he was in Japan by 1859, producing photographs first in Nagasaki, then in Kanagawa, Yokohama and Edo ; he was the first professional photographer to arrive in Japan. In October 1860, he took photographs of the British Consul of harbour on behalf of George S. Morrison, for which he was paid USD 70,000. Although Rossier’s photographs of Japan were advertised by the firm on at least two occasions in 1860, the firm did not publish them until October or November 1861, having several engravings under the title An Domestic China, China, and the Pacific. The firm considered his Swiss citizenship an asset for such a voyage, that his country’s neutrality might help him find passage aboard either British or French ships. If so, he was unsuccessful; both forces had already hired photographers to document the mission.
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This page is based on the article Pierre Rossier published in Wikipedia (as of Nov. 05, 2020) and was automatically summarized using artificial intelligence.
