Antoine Sonrel was an illustrator, engraver and photographer in Switzerland

Switzerland

Switzerland name of one of the Swiss cantons. ; ; ; or ), in its full name the Swiss Confederation , is a federal republic consisting of 26 cantons, with Bern as the seat of the federal authorities. The country is situated in Western Europe,Or Central Europe depending on the definition....

 and Boston

Boston

Boston is the capital of and largest city in Massachusetts, and is one of the oldest cities in the United States. The largest city in New England, Boston is regarded as the unofficial "Capital of New England" for its economic and cultural impact on the entire New England region. The city proper had...

, Massachusetts

Massachusetts

The Commonwealth of Massachusetts is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States of America. It is bordered by Rhode Island and Connecticut to the south, New York to the west, and Vermont and New Hampshire to the north; at its east lies the Atlantic Ocean. As of the 2010...

, in the 19th century. He moved from Neuchâtel to the United States around the late 1840s, and was affiliated with Louis Agassiz

Louis Agassiz

Jean Louis Rodolphe Agassiz was a Swiss paleontologist, glaciologist, geologist and a prominent innovator in the study of the Earth's natural history. He grew up in Switzerland and became a professor of natural history at University of Neuchâtel...

 throughout his career. As a photographer he created numerous carte de visite

Carte de visite

The carte de visite was a type of small photograph which was patented in Paris, France by photographer André Adolphe Eugène Disdéri in 1854, although first used by Louis Dodero...

 portraits in the 1860s and 1870s; subjects included his friend Agassiz, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. was an American physician, professor, lecturer, and author. Regarded by his peers as one of the best writers of the 19th century, he is considered a member of the Fireside Poets. His most famous prose works are the "Breakfast-Table" series, which began with The Autocrat...

, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. was an American jurist who served as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from 1902 to 1932...

, Abbott Lawrence Rotch

Abbott Lawrence Rotch

Abbott Lawrence Rotch was an American meteorologist and founder of the Blue Hill Meteorological Observatory, the longest continually operating observation site in the United States and an important site for world climatology....

, and sculptor Anne Whitney

Anne Whitney

Anne Whitney was an American sculptor and poet. She was born in Watertown, Massachusetts on September 2, 1821 and died in Boston, Massachusetts on January 23, 1915.-Early years:...

.

Biography

Around the 1830s in Neuchâtel, Sonrel began creating scientific illustrations for Louis Agassiz. "Draftsmen of superior talent, trained ... to the greatest accuracy — Weber, Dinkel, and Sonrel — were constantly in [Agassiz's] employ at a regular salary. ... At the suggestion of Agassiz an extensive lithographic establishment was created in Neuchatel." Agassiz wrote in 1857: "I esteem myself happy to have been able to secure the continued assistance of my old friend, Mr. A. Sonrel, in drawing the zoological figures of my work. More than twenty years ago, he began to make illustrations for my European works ; and ever since he has been engaged, with short interruptions, in executing drawings for me."

In the United States, Sonrel lived in Boston on Acorn Street in Beacon Hill (ca.1850), Tremont Street

Tremont Street

Tremont Street is a major thoroughfare in Boston, Massachusetts.-Etymology:The name is a variation of one of the original appellations of the city, "Trimountaine," a reference to a hill that formerly had three peaks. Beacon Hill, with its single peak, is all that remains of the Trimountain...

 (ca.1873); and in Woburn, Massachusetts

Woburn, Massachusetts

Woburn is a city in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, USA. The population was 38,120 at the 2010 census. Woburn is located north of Boston, Massachusetts, and just south of the intersection of I-93 and I-95.- History :...

 (ca.1852-1874). He kept a studio in Boston on School Street (ca.1860s) and Washington Street (ca.1871-1874). Sonrel exhibited lithographs in the 1851 World's Fair

The Great Exhibition

The Great Exhibition of the Works of Industry of all Nations or The Great Exhibition, sometimes referred to as the Crystal Palace Exhibition in reference to the temporary structure in which it was held, was an international exhibition that took place in Hyde Park, London, from 1 May to 15 October...

 in London; and in the 1853 exhibition of the Massachusetts Charitable Mechanic Association

Massachusetts Charitable Mechanic Association

The Massachusetts Charitable Mechanic Association of Boston, Massachusetts, was "formed for the sole purposes of promoting the mechanic arts and extending the practice of benevolence." Founding members included Paul Revere, Benjamin Russell, and others...

.

Works illustrated by Sonrel

• Natural history illustrations. Prepared under the direction of Louis Agassiz. 1849. The anatomy of Astrangia danae. Six lithographs from drawings by A. Sonrel. Explanation of plates by J. Walter Fewkes. Washington: Smithsonian institution, 1889.
• Louis Agassiz, James Elliot Cabot. Lake Superior: its physical character, vegetation, and animals, compared with those of other and similar regions. Boston: Gould, Kendall and Lincoln, 1850. "Elegantly illustrated" with images by Cabot and Sonrel. "The Landscape Illustrations are taken from sketches made on the spot, by Mr. Cabot. Those of the Second Part were drawn and lithographed by Mr. Sonrel, a Swiss artist of much distinction in this branch, and formerly employed by Prof. Agassiz at Neuchatel, but now resident in this country."
• Boston Journal of Natural History
  Boston Journal of Natural History
  The Boston Journal of Natural History was a scholarly journal published by the Boston Society of Natural History in mid-19th century Massachusetts. Contributors included Charles T. Jackson, Augustus A. Gould, and others. Each volume featured lithographic illustrations, some in color,...
  
  , 1850s.
• Louis Agassiz. Contributions to the natural history of the United States of America. Boston: Little, Brown and Co., 1857-ca.1862. 2nd monograph (1862)
• Thaddeus William Harris. A treatise on some of the insects injurious to vegetation. New York: Orange Judd and Company, 1862.

About Sonrel

• Jules Marcou. Life, letters, and works of Louis Agassiz. Macmillan and co., 1895.
• David Karel. Dictionnaire des artistes de langue française en Amérique du Nord: peintres, sculpteurs, dessinateurs, graveurs, photographes, et orfèvres. Quebec: Presses Université Laval, 1992.
• Christoph Irmscher. Wonderful entanglements: Louis Agassiz, Antoine Sonrel, and the challenge of the Medusa. In: A keener perception : ecocritical studies in American art history. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 2009.

External links

• WorldCat
• New York Public Library. Harper's Weekly, April 21, 1866 : Professor Louis Agassiz (photographed by A. Sonrel, Boston).
• Flickr. Portrait of "son of Dr. Jackson" by Sonrel.
• Flickr. Portrait of unidentified child by Sonrel.
• Flickr. Portrait of Agassiz by Sonrel

Image gallery