Promoting Kodak, George Davison used a No. 4 Bullet hand camera to capture this scene. The image appeared smaller in the beautiful publication Kodak Portfolio: Souvenir of the Eastman Photographic Exhibition 1897 also printed by James Craig Annan. Of the photograph, Davison writes… “The photograph here printed gives an idea of the bright and sunny aspect of a part of the interesting market-place of Aix-les-Bains on a palpitating hot day at the end of May. The fountain represented yields medicinally charged water, sulphur from one tap, and alum from another, as well as the unsophisticated article; and the place is situated close to the famous Baths, where so many afflicted with rheumatic affections seek relief.
The negative was taken upon film with an instantaneous exposure in a No. 4 Bullet Kodak.”

In addition to being printed by Annan, the image also shares some of Annan’s progressive graphic composition and cropping. Compare to Annan’s Campo San Margherita (1897) which appeared in the Bulletin de l’Association Belge de Photographie.