Conférence organisée par l'Association des Amis du Vieux Chamonix

1860, Haute-Savoie in color, a heritage and sentimental journey through a rediscovered book. Conference by Hervé Lavergne Editeur

In 1860, the Treaty of Turin united Haute-Savoie with France. The department's first prefect, Joseph Ferrand, believed in culture as a means of uniting populations, and in tourism as a means of economic development. He commissioned a historian, Francis Wey, and a renowned watercolorist, Henry-John Terry, to produce a "travel and history" book to introduce the French to this new department.
Nothing should be omitted from its landscapes, history, legends and popular traditions. This desire to capture the living, geographical and human totality of a territory was all the more enlightened given that this was a time when many things were beginning to happen in the Mont-Blanc region: industrialization, engineering structures, tourism - notably in Chamonix with the Hôtel d'Angleterre -thermalism, excursions to the peaks and glaciers with the Balmat dynasty as guides...
The singular history of this work will be complemented by a projection of engravings from the only known color version of "La Haute-Savoie", recently rediscovered and soon to be published by myself.
Henry Terry's 51 watercolors are lithographed in four-color process and enhanced by hand: a splendor that no one has ever seen before!