As part of the events organized in honor of its 30th anniversary, the Musée de l’Elysée is presenting the first exhibition devoted to the iconographic collection. Founded in 1896 by the pastor Paul Vionnet (1830-1914), this collection, focused on the history of the Canton of Vaud, is at the very origin of the Musée de l’Elysée in 1985 as a museum dedicated to the image. Consisting of a wide variety of objects, it now contains hundreds of thousands of phototypes (negatives, prints, contact sheets, albums) covering the history of the medium from its beginnings in the 1840s up until the 1980s.

The selection includes more than 500 pieces – most of which have never before been exhibited – and is organized into three parts: the first floor chronicles the history of the collection, beginning with the work of Paul Vionnet, one of the pioneers of local photography, up until the creation of the Musée historiographique vaudois. A dozen of the major themes underlying the collections such as heritage inventories can be found on the top floor. The ground floor is devoted to the outstanding names in local photography whose works have enriched the iconographic collection since the 1960s as part of a policy to enhance photography.