Dossier BB3

Dossier BB3, Paris police file on pornographic photography, running to 303 manuscript pages and covering the years 1855-68. Although many 19th-century police forces monitored the pornography industry, relatively few documents survive, and other Paris material was destroyed in the Paris Commune of 1871. Dossier BB3 is exceptionally copious and informative, containing not only c. 100 pasted-in samples of confiscated photographs but arrest reports, and details of photographers, colourists, peddlers, male and female models and their procurers, and the sentences they received. Many of those included were reputable view or portrait photographers; one was choirmaster of a Paris church. There is no record of purchasers or collectors, as possession was not illegal. But the file affords a fascinating glimpse into aspects of the French photographic and sex industries at a time of heightened public concern.

Bibliography

• Pellerin, D., “‘Dossier BB3 and the Erotic Image in the Second Empire’”, in F. Reynaud, C. Tambrun, and K. Timby (eds.), Paris in 3D: From Stereoscopy to Virtual Reality 1850-2000 (2000)