aéroplanesvoisin

[The Voisin brothers, French aviation pioneers. Gabriel Voisin (1880-1973), on the left, and Charles Voisin (1882-1912), on the right] (LOC)

from The Library of Congress

• 1 older comment, and then…
• Joe said:

  Charles (1882-1912) and Gabriel (1880-1973) Voisin were pioneers of aviation. Their company, Voisin Freres, was the Europe's first commercial airplane factory. Charles died in an automobile accident in 1912. Gabriel continued to manufacture aircraft until, following World War I, he turned to the production of luxury automobiles, citing as a reason his distress at the way aircraft had been used for violence during the war. He continued to make automobiles under the marque Avions Voisin into the 1950s. Information about the Voisin brothers pioneering work in aviation can be found online at this link, along with numerous images.

• The Library of Congress said:

  whyaduck: Thank you! Helpful biographical information and your source confirms that Bain mixed up the brothers' names. Charles is on the right. We'll add a subject note. P.S. Can you decipher the photographer's name, bottom left?

• Joe said:

  Through Google I find a very few references to a photographer named H. Manuel who was active in Paris around the 1910s. Google Books result with two citations of H. Manuel in the notes on page57. An e-Bay listing (this link probably won't last long) for a vintage photo by H. Manuel, published in Paris. This page from an Emory University site about WWI, on which there are several postcards which have on their reverse "Edit. Art. H. Manuel, Paris" (the versos are not displayed on the site.) None of these sites show the signature as it appears on the Voisin brothers photo, but all my attempts to find other photographers of the period with names similar to the signature were dead ends.

• Lú_ said:

  This image has been used in the indicommons.org Best of the Library of Commons post The Voisin Brothers. (Nice work, whyaduck!)
  
  

• grahamlittle10 said:

  Hi, I'm an admin for a group called Voisin Automobiles., and we'd love to have this added to the group!