Rabindranath Tagore in Albert Kahn’s gardens, Paris

Rabindranath Tagore in Albert Kahn’s gardens, Paris

Some internationalists used their homes to promote the cause. Albert Kahn (1860-1940), a rich banker from Alsace, converted his elegant house and gardens in Boulogne-Billancourt on the outskirts of Paris into a shrine to internationalism, welcoming leading intellectuals and politicians, including the Bengali poet Rabindranath Tagore shown in this photograph, for meetings and conferences. Kahn provided generous funds for young travellers, the future leaders of a borderless world, to circumnavigate the globe and also dispatched photographers to record the peoples of the globe, often in colour, for the Archives of the Planet, a project overseen by geographer Jean Brunhes.

A 36 199, Collection Archives de la Planète - Musée Albert-Kahn/Département des Hauts-de-Seine. Images available at collections.albert-kahn.hauts-de-seine.fr for non-commercial reuse