SCHRADER (Franz) - Lot 570

SCHRADER (Franz) Reunion of 3 autograph letters from Franz SCHRADER, a typescript titled "Extrait des fiches bibliographiques de M. LE BONDIDIER) with handwritten note "Bibliographie pyrénéiste de F. SCHRADER" in Franz SCHRADER's hand. List of articles published in the Annuaire du Club Alpin Français (4 pages), portraits of Franz SCHRADER cut out from publications, 4 silver photographs of Franz SCHRADER's funeral in Gavarnie, and a typescript speech by Alphonse MEILLON for Franz SCHRADER (with small handwritten corrections). The history of Pyreneanism in Gavarnie owes much to the personality of Franz SCHRADER. Born in Bordeaux in 1844, he discovered the Pyrenees with a passion and devoted all his spare time to their study, to the point of acquiring genuine scientific skills in topography and cartography. He invented the orograph, which enabled him to draw up the first map of the Mont-Perdu and Gavarnie massifs. The Club Alpin Français (C.A.F.) entrusted him with its highest responsibilities. By the end of his life, he was a multi-talented man: geographer, painter, writer, philosopher, anthropologist, explorer... After his death in 1924, at the age of 80, the C.A.F. decided to give him a burial plot on the Turon de la Courade, near the Gavarnie cirque, the preferred site for his work. Franz SCHRADER thus became the second Gavarnie Pyrenean, after Russell, to be honored by the C.A.F. and the first to be buried on the site. The site was chosen to face the summit of Piméné, the laboratory par excellence for geographical observations of the cirque. Interment took place on September 19, 1927. The sepulchral monument was built by Pau architect MAUSSIER-DANDELOT.