Jules Robuchon, a photographer from Poitiers, France, took thousands of stereotypes of the three regions of Poitou (Vienne, Vendee, Deux-Sèvres). The images were reproduced as a twelve-volume publication, Paysages et monuments du Poitou. Originally printed in woodburytype, between 1884 and 1895, Paysages et monuments du Poitou was ultimately published in heliogravure – two hundred and forty-nine to be exact – by the famous atelier, Dujardin. 

By 1893, the criticism was very clear: his work was above all a work intended for intelligent salons, a work of high popularization, but more and more, if [we] judge by the issues currently published, archaeologists and professional historians will find food and pleasure there. Yet these illustrations clearly show the influence of the aesthetic canons of the graphic arts. The careful framing, lighting and printing, which contribute to the construction of an atmosphere, make them take on a form more aesthetic than informative. [1]

In 1891, Robuchon decided to repeat the experience with the five volumes of photogravures from images from Brittany in Paysages Et Monuments De La Bretagne, but it did not meet the same success.

Robuchon founded the Syndicat d’initiative des Voyages en Poitou in 1905, he succeeded Alfred Perlat as a photographer for the Société des antiquaires de l’Ouest. He also forged a reputation as a sculptor. After 1900 he devoted himself more and more to sculpture and to the publication of postcards illustrated with his photos, which he sold in a shop-workshop on rue du Moulin à Vent in Poitiers.