1-631-641 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

Andre Jacques Garnerin, French aeronaut and the first parachutist, c1802 (1910). 'Monsr Garnerin, and his Extraordinary Descent in a Parachute'. Garnerin (1769-1823) became a balloon inspector in the French Army in 1793. In Paris in 1797, he performed the first public exhibition of a parachute jump from a free-flying balloon, descending 3200 feet. He was the first aeronaut to parachute regularly. He often worked with his brother, Jean-Baptiste-Olivier Garnerin. Illustration from The Connoisseur, (August 1910).