Anne Tiffon Cassan, better known by the name Anaïs Napoleón, was a photographer and pioneer of Franco-Spanish cinema.

She was born in Narbona, emigrating with her family at an early age. She settled in Barcelona in 1946 on account of her father’s work as a hairdresser, wigmaker and pedicurist: under the name Napoleón, he managed to attract a large clientele to his studio in Las Ramblas, becoming podiatrist to the Crown.

In December 1850, Anaïs married Antonio Fernández Soriano. They established a small photography shop situated on the Santa Monica boulevard three years later. This modest business, that began by employing the daguerreotype technique, would go on to become the Napoleón Photography Company, adopting the family name and specialising in photographic portraits and business cards with these portraits incorporated. The photography studio became one of the most prestigious in the city, continuing, thanks to the work of some of her children and later descendents, until its closure in 1968. The business was also notable for its pioneering in the field of cinema; acquiring cinematic apparatus from the Lumiere brothers, and soon thereafter opening a screening room in December 1896. The inventors themselves were present at the opening ceremony. The room’s immediate success led to the opening in 1901 of a second cinema located on Avinguda del Paral•lel, though the growing competition in the world of cinema led them to close both screens in 1908, dedicating themselves once more to photography.    

MAE, Óscar Palomares Navarro, 2020