Visiteurs sur la terasse Est du jardin du Luxembourg, 6ème arrondissement, Paris

The three brothers Jules (1872-1932), Louis (1874-1946) and Henri (1876-1956) were born to Jean-Baptiste, a Bavarian merchant who emigrated to France in 1870, and their mother Louise, a widow from Lyon with a daughter, Félicie. The second generation, Louis' sons, the brothers Jean (1910-1979) and Albert (1914-1999), also inherited a love of photography. Together, their work spanned most of the twentieth century and was dedicated to elegance and fashion. The brothers went to Paris for secondary school at the Lycée Rollin, where Louis won first prize for drawing. They completed their schooling at the École Nationale d'Art de Palissy before Jules and Louis began their training as fabric designers at the workshop of J. Souchon, a specialist in "high innovations, dresses, ribbons, damask, jacquard fabrics and drawing". From this came an interest in and knowledge of fashion. While the three brothers worked as fabric designers, in 1891 Jules began taking drawing lessons in the evenings and also took up photography. After moving to 39 rue Lafayette in the 10th arr., Louis won the Danton Jeune prize for a disadvantaged child at the Ville de Paris art school, while Jules won a travel grant to Normandy. Meanwhile, the youngest, Henri, enrolled at a school of applied arts and also won prizes. After their father's death in 1894, the family moved to the quieter 13 rue Fénelon. In 1899, Jules entered photographs in various competitions, an interest soon shared by his brothers, winning prizes in amateur competitions organised by the newspaper Lectures Pour Tous. He experimented with bromoil, in particular the Rawlins process. Jules won prizes for documentary photography in 1903 and 1904 for pictures he took on the banks of the Seine and in Montmartre. Images by the three brothers, who signed their work with their initials (JHLS), were exhibited and published in various magazines and as postcards by the Kunzli brothers and Leopold Verger. Supported by their mother, their elder sister and Louis' wife Anna, the three brothers set up a family business in 1909 under the name of "Frères Séeberger" in a studio at 33 rue de Chabrol, also in the 10th arrondissement and five minutes' walk from their home.

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