Self-portrait by Antoine Fauchery, albumen silver photograph, State Library Victoria

Immortalised as Marcel in Murger’s Scènes de la vie de Bohème, French photographer and writer Antoine Fauchery played a crucial role in transmitting Parisian bohemian culture to Melbourne. After a stint on the Victorian goldfields in 1852, Fauchery ran the short-lived Café Estaminet Français in Little Bourke Street, a haven for European expatriates. He then travelled between Europe, Asia and Australia, writing plays for Parisian theatres and running a photography studio in Melbourne before dying of dysentery in Japan, aged 38. Fauchery’s character in Murger’s novel attracted French artist Mirka Mora and her husband Georges to Melbourne in 1951.