Postcard Grottes de Han, Le Trophée, stalagmite with torchbearer

Sepia postcard of the stalagmite Le Trophée in the Caves of Han, published by NELS Brussels for the Société Anonyme des Grottes de Han-sur-Lesse et de Rochefort, as number 12 in the series. The composition shows the imposing calcite formation lit from the front, with a small figure on the left holding a burning torch aloft. The torchlight sets off the dark rock recess against the gleaming calcium carbonate of the formation, in which every ridge and drapery-like flow stands out sharply. The printed caption "Grottes de Han - Le Trophée" appears at the bottom. The card is in good condition.

Le Trophée is one of the largest and most celebrated concretions in the Caves of Han, a gigantic stalagmite seven metres high and twenty metres in circumference in the eponymous Trophy Hall. The Caves of Han in the Ardennes have been visited since the eighteenth century and received electric lighting in 1897. Until then the chambers were lit by resin torches, a technique that was kept in use for postcard photography for decades afterwards because the dramatic play of shadows proved indispensable in making the scale of the concretions visible. The photographic image on this card, probably from the 1920s or 1930s, unites two disciplines that converged in this period: the geology of limestone karst and the photographic staging of the subterranean as wonder.