Marcel Thomas (1909-2000) - portrait de Luciano Pavarotti - cachet de l'expert Gérard Gagnepain au verso

A very beautiful photograph by Marcel Thomas, depicting Luciano Pavarotti (1935-2007), the Italian tenor widely regarded as one of the greatest opera singers of the 20th century. Renowned for the power and clarity of his voice, he helped popularize opera with the general public.

Marcel Thomas is a French photographer with an unconventional career path. It was after World War II that he settled in Paris, working in the confection industry. From 1947 to 1990, thanks to the help of doormen at major Parisian hotels, he photographed, with their consent, hundreds of French and international stars. He approached them with a friend who would ask for an autograph, then suggested that his companion photograph them; hence the 'posed' rather than 'stolen' aspect of these.

Marcel Thomas took these photos as an amateur and did not commercialize them, but he accumulated several thousand. Shortly before his death in August 2000, he bequeathed his photos to his friend, the writer Gérard Gagnepain, whom he charged with making his collection known.