1851. Uncoloured double-sided lithograph paper fan (approx. 24 x 45.5 cm when opened) mounted on 16 plain wooden staves, with the obverse giving details of the plan of the route to the summit with key below together with vignettes of the Glacier du Taccony and the Tête Noir pass, with vignettes depicting climbers ascending the Mur du la Cote, The Grand Aulets and another entitled ‘Coming Down’ on the reverse; with further smaller ornamental vignettes of deer, birds and snakes; paper somewhat browned and soiled with some staining along folds and offsetting from staves, two outer folds with splits but with no significant loss; with small red tag noting ‘sent to J.M.T. at Pontresina, July 1950, by the Count de Suzannet (A.G.) of Lausanne’; housed within the original red ‘faux morocco’ card case, a little stained and darkened with light rubbing and wear to extremities; an appealing if slightly fragile survivor. An appealing folding fan, with a nice association and unusually still housed within its original faux red morocco card slip case, celebrating the mountaineering achievements of the flamboyant surgeon, balloonist, novelist, traveller, and showman, Albert Smith (1816–1860).
Smith had first visited Chamonix in 1838 whilst in France pursuing his medical studies, thus beginning a lifelong fascination with the region and with Mont Blanc, and culminating in his own ascent in August 1851. ‘The entourage consisted of his three companions, sixteen guides and eighteen porters, who carried the copious amounts of food and drink for the two-day expedition’ (Darren Bevin, Mr Albert Smith’s Ascent of Mont Blanc’, p. 87). This apparently included 60 bottles of ‘vin ordinaire’, three of cognac, and two of champagne, six packets of chocolate, four legs of mutton, and 46 fowls!
‘On 15 March 1852 the resulting account of the expedition, Mr Albert Smith’s Ascent of Mont Blanc’, opened at the Egyptian Hall in Piccadilly’. It was an immediate success, Smith enthralling audiences with somewhat exaggerated tales of his derring-do: he had, in fact, to be hauled off the mountain by his guides due to his lack of preparation, and having over imbibed! Nevertheless, the spectacular show ran for 2000 performances between 1852 and 1858, and included elaborate sets, a panorama and songs. Drawing the admiration of contemporaries such as Charles Dickens, it was the most popular London show for many years, propelling Smith to stardom, and leading to a surge of interest in mountaineering, and ‘Mont Blanc’ mania.
The present fan was one of a number of souvenirs published to accompany his lectures, alongside folding paper roses, boxes of nougat, and peepshows. Acting as both programme, souvenir, map, and visual snapshot, the obverse is illustrated with details of the plan of the route to the summit with a key below together with vignettes of the Glacier du Taccony and the Tête Noir pass. The reverse includes vignettes depicting climbers ascending the Mur du la Cote, The Grand Aulets and finally showing them ‘Coming Down’ - not always elegantly!
A man of many talents, matched by boundless self-belief, Smith was nevertheless a somewhat divisive figure. For some he embodied the Victorian ideal of the self-made man: energetic, imaginative and entrepreneurial. For many in the alpine community, however, he was viewed a merely a commercial showman with little interest in the Alps themselves. Smith was in fact one of the founding members of the Alpine Club, established in 1857, though ‘there is little reference to him in ‘Peaks, Passes and Glaciers’, the journal set up by the club in 1858, which subsequently became the Alpine Journal in 1863... Nevertheless, at the height of the shows’ popularity, as Dickens pointed out, they gaven an escapist, magical and fearful (if perhaps inaccurate) portrayal of an exotic landscape during a period before photography and mountaineers gave a more candid interpretation of the landscape. This encouraged some to seek out unexplored wildernesses and allowed others an escapist glimpse into unfamiliar territory that was rapidly turning into a very marketable commodity and ‘the playground of Europe’ (Bevin, p. 89).
Provenance: The fan bears a tag reading “Sent to J.M.T. at Pontresina, July 1950 by the Count de Suzannet (A.C.) of Lausanne”. The Count and Comtesse de Suzannet were noted book collectors of both mountaineering and Dickens: after the Comte’s death in 1950, a portion of the collection went up for sale at Sotheby’s, whilst much was bequeathed to the Alpine Club.