About This Image

Paul Méténier (1829-1909) was initially an itinerant photographer and then later had several studio locations.

Gilbert Méténier (often called Paul and sometimes Hippolyte) was born on June 17, 1829, in Hérisson (Allier), where his father was a farmer. Before the age of 16, he was orphaned.

By October 1850 he was a clog maker in Cher when he married the daughter of a clog maker from Ainay-le-Château (Allier). His wife died on May 15, 1857, a few weeks after giving birth to a son who would only live six months. That same year, Paul Méténier, a widower with a young child, remarried Cécile Lorreau, a seamstress in Ainay-le-Château. He was still a traveling clog maker in Cher when their first child was born on October 10, 1858.

How did the clog maker become a photographer? Nothing is known about this astonishing metamorphosis. The clog maker likely encountered a traveling photographer during his business trips, who inspired him to change careers. In any case, by December 4, 1859, when one of his children died in infancy, he was a photographer living in Ainay-le-Château. In this town of 2,000 inhabitants, the clientele was insufficient to support the household.

Méténier was initially a traveling photographer in Allier and Cher, and even further afield. Was it he who announced his arrival in Poitiers in the "Journal de la Vienne" of September 19, 1859: "Méténier, painter, professor of photography from Paris, has the honor of giving notice of his arrival in our city for only a few days. He dares to hope that we will not let this opportunity slip away to have portraits of striking resemblance and unalterable, according to the most recommended processes of the capital..."? It is difficult to make the link between the clog maker of 1858 and the (self-proclaimed) professor of photography of Paris in 1859.

After living in Gannat (Allier), then in Dun-sur-Auron (Cher), Méténier settled in Allier. He first settled in Vichy where his presence is attested in February 1863. His first studio address was Place de Marine, 12 in Vichy. In 1866, he is listed at 6, boulevard Napoléon. The following year, he is active in Montluçon on the boulevard de la Mairie. He returned to Vichy where he is listed at 12, rue Sévigné in 1872. Later, he will be associated with Georges Arloing under the name of "Méténier & Arloing - Photographers from Paris to Vichy - branch in Saint-Amand-Montrond (Cher)". Arloing is also a photographer in Saint-Amand in September 1886 when he marries a niece of Madame Méténier. It was he who took over the Vichy workshop after Méténier's departure.

Alongside his career in the Bourbonnais region, Méténier had a workshop at the Palais-Royal, where he was apparently active from 1869.

In "Le Courrier de Cannes," dated November 30, 1871, we find an advertisement in French and English for Paul Méténier Photography on Rue Bivouac, in which he praises a "New genre of miniatures on ivory, enamel, and porcelain card." He only spent a short time on Rue du Bivouac, as by August 1872, he was working at 41 Rue d'Antibes in a workshop adjoining the Cannes Casino, which he had placed under the sign "English Photography." Paul Méténier's last advertisement in "Les Echos de Cannes" was published in the December 6, 1874, issue.

In Nice, he was located at 7 rue Alberti (1875-1876), then at 28 boulevard du Pont-Neuf (1877), and finally at 26 boulevard du Pont-Neuf from 1879 to 1884. He also had a branch at 19 rue Victor-Emmanuel in Menton. It was undoubtedly on the Mediterranean coast that Paul Méténier ended his career, about which many gaps remain to be filled.

Paul Méténier died on February 26, 1909 in Saint-Amand-Montrond (Cher) at the age of 80.

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