My friend ballerina and now Ballet Mistress at Ballet BC, Sandrine Cassini is from Niece. On her way here, a few weeks ago to start her job here, she stopped by her hometown to gather her things. In her parent’s attic, in an old trunk, she found this photograph. She brought it for me as a gift. 

I have identified it as an albumen print. These were circa 1850 to 1880s. They were shot on big cameras with a glass negative and the negative was then pressed on paper that had light sensitive materials held together by egg white.

Cassini was able to give me some information about the subject of the photograph. He was a musician who was related to her mother’s side of the family, the Bergerons.The young man in question was named Louis-Pierre and he played the horn at the Paris Opera in the 1860s. Cassini told me that Bergeron quit and emigrated to Canada.

What is most interesting is that the back of the print has this penciled information.

 1815 -Jean Hilaire Asté 

I thought this was the name of the photographer but the date was wrong. I looked up the name and it seems that Asté was a natural horn maker based in Paris.

With the print Cassini also brought me a sheet of old music by composer Anton Reicha (Rejcha) (26 February 1770 – 28 May 1836) who was a Czech-born, later naturalized French composer. The sheet music is one of his six Wind Quintets  the one in B-flat major), Op. 100 (Paris, 1820).