Popular Culture Physique Magazines and Books

Professor Desbonnet published five magazines on the practice of physical culture. In these publications his theories are explained and illustrated with photographs of famous athletes. Sandow, Apollon, Brancaccio, Otto Arco, Cadine, Deriaz, etc.

His most popular magazines were "La Santé par les Sports" & "La Culture Physique".
See "The three sisters Kloss", Gymnastes, on the cover of the 1905 December issue.

Women and physical culture seems to be related with the world of the cabaret and theatre, judging women photographs in these health magazines.
See: "Les Jambes Superbes, women in the Moulin Rouge & Folies Bergère"

The same images seen on the well known and collectable variete postcards, depicting vaudeville actrices, are often seen on the cover and inside these physical culture magazines. For example Otero, Cléo de Mérode, De Marsa, Trouhanova, Régina Badet, Sandrini, etc. Obviously these illustrations are done by the same postcard photographers, e.g. Walery, Reutlinger, etc.

 Hanny Spiegelberg

Desbonnet used large mirrors in his "Culture Physique" rooms. This enables the athletes to inspect and follow-up their physical devellopment and appeareance. For photographic purposes, these mirrors were often hidden by a curtains, acting as a background.

Images where no mirrors or photographer is visible but in the same style, can be described to Desbonnet. Certainly, not all images in this collection are made by this grand-father of physical culture. Several images ar much too different. Another part of images in the lot depicts strong men (e.g. Apollon) & strong women (e.g. Apollina) street acts on fairs and vaudeville events.

Most of the men portraits have their name written on the glass stereo slide but this is very rarely the case for the women portraits. E.g. Hanny Spiegelberg. Most of these images stay anonymous. In some women portraits the faces are deliberately scratched to make them unrecognisable. See the next two images taken in the Culture Physique room.