Jacques-Henri Lartigue
French, 1894­1986
Zissou in His Tire Boat, Chateau de Rouzat
1911
Silver gelatin print
23.1x 17.2 cm
Gift of Kathleen W. Harvey Memorial Fund, 1974.222/f
Reproduction permission courtesy of the Association des Amis de Jacques-Henri Lartigue

Lartigue first began using a camera when he was only six years old, and many of his photographs record the activities of his remarkable family, who loved to invent and experiment. He was seventeen when he took this photograph of his brother Zissou.

Zissou isn’t just floating in a tube. The “boat,” one of his family’s inventions, has big, rubber duck feet that you can barely see below the water’s surface. Zissou could move through the water without getting wet. To demonstrate this, he wears a suit and tie.