Old photograph with dedication by Alberto Santos Dumont (1926)

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In 1926, the famous aviator Alberto Santos Dumont presents an acquaintance with his photograph and a dedication... ironic?

Old photograph of the famous aviator Alberto Santos Dumont previously pasted on a card with the following dedication. In Portuguese. Bottom card : 37 cm x 24 cm. Photo: 17 cm x 23.5 cm. Valmont sur Territtet, Switzerland. 1926. Middle State.

Val Mont sur Territtet (Switzerland)
1926
 
Mrs. J. Quadro Ges.,
the boy Paulo de Quadros
and your teacher at
big company
Santos Dumont

From 1910, Alberto Santos Dumont (1873 - 1932), at the age of 37, saw his health deteriorate drastically due to the combination of overwork and a nervous breakdown, caused after realizing that aviation was becoming a common medium. of transport and that the era of the pioneers was coming to an end. Furthermore, he had to admit that the Wright brothers were probably the first in the world to fly, especially as they came to France for exhibitions.

From one day to the next, Santos Dumont announced that he was abandoning aviation, closed his "airport" and fired all his staff. From that moment on, despite several new inventions, such as the helicopter or the seaplane or cable car, which did not have the expected success. His existence was just a long physical and intellectual descent that led him, after remissions and stays in a sanatorium in France and Switzerland, until his suicide in São Paulo, 22 years later, in 1932, at the beginning of his sixtieth year.

According to Douglas Cavallari, specialist and biographer of Alberto de Santos Dumont

First of all, thank you very much for contacting me and congratulations on purchasing the photo, it is very rare. I have a photographic reproduction of a copy of this photo, which I located at the Dumont Museum, a city in the interior of São Paulo. But I've never seen an original before.
 
The story of this photo is as follows: in the last years of his life (mainly between 1922 and 1932), Santos-Dumont was hospitalized several times in the so-called “rehabilitation clinics”, which were nothing more than insane asylums for rich people. One of these clinics (which still exists today) is Clinique Valmont, in Switzerland. The clinic is actually in Glion, Territet (with just a "t") is a neighboring village.

Regarding the dedication, it is probably a souvenir given to Brazilians that Santos Dumont must have met in the city during his stay at the clinic. Could it be that the "great" used by Santos Dumont is irony or the depressed aviator's ego?