The Daguerreotype

Methodology Flash 1 Due
 
Southworth and Hawes. Young Girl. c. 1850.  Daguerreotype.
http://museum.icp.org/museum/exhibitions/southworth_hawes/images/pic_portrait_02.jpg
  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Louis Jacques Mande Daguerre.  Triptych with three daguerreotypes presented to King Ludwig I of Bavaria.  1839.
Koetzle, Hans-Michael. Photo Icons: The Story Behind the Pictures. Volume 1. Koln: Taschen, 2002.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Daguerre's process:

The Artist's Studio

Louis Jacques Mande Daguerre. Still Life in Studio. 1837. Daguerreotype.
Richard G. Tansey & Fred S. Kleiner. Gardner's Art Through the Ages. Tenth ed. Fort Worth: Harcourt Brace College Publishers, 1996, p. 959.
Used silver-plated sheet of copper
Placed silver side down over box containing iodine
Iodine fumes reacted with the silver to create light sensitive silver iodide on the surface of the plate
Exposed the plate in a camera obscura for several hours
  No image visible afterwards
Exposed plate to fumes from heated mercury
Image became visible
Plate bathed in strong solution of table salt
Halted the light sensitivity of the silver iodide
Plate washed in water

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Daguerreotype camera

1839 Daguerreotype camera
http://theonlinephotographer.typepad.com/the_online_photographer/2010/05/index.html

 

1839 Daguerreotype Giroux sold for approximately $899,000 in 2010 making it the most expensive camera. Alphonse Giroux was the brother-in-law of Louis Jacques Mandé Daguerre
who manufactured the devices and sold them internationally.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hippolyte Bayard.  Plaster Casts.  c. 1839. 
Direct paper positive.
Newhall, Beaumont. The History of Photography. The Museum of
Modern Art, New York. 1982.

 1838
Daguerre hires Count Francois Arago, Secretary of the Academy of Sciences, to promote invention and secure copyright from government
1839
Hippolyte Bayard makes direct positives on sensitized paper
Exposes paper with silver chloride emulsion to light
Soaks paper in potassium iodide
Exposes paper in obscura about 12 minutes
Washes paper in bath of hyposulphite of soda
Bayard shows examples of prints to Count Arago
Arago pressures Bayard not to publish results of his experiments

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Enter the Englishman...

 

Leaves and Orchids

William Henry Fox Talbot. Leaves and Orchids. 1839. Photogenic drawing.
http://rollfilm.wordpress.com/2007/03/

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

June 1839
Bayard exhibits 30 of his direct positive prints in Paris

Self-portrait as Drowned Man

Hippolyte Bayard. Self-Portrait as a Drowned Man. 1840. Direct paper positive.
 
First public exhibition of photographic images
 
Bayard given small cash award
   
"The corpse you see is that of M. Bayard… The Academy, the King and all those who have seen his pictures admired them, just as you do… This has brought him prestige, but not a penny. The government, which has supported M. Daguerre more than is necessary, declared it could do nothing for M. Bayard, and the unhappy man drowned himself…he has been at the morgue for several days, and no one has recognized him. Ladies and gentlemen, you'd better pass along for fear of offending your sense of smell, for as you can observe, the face and hands of the gentleman are beginning to decay."
- Hippolyte Bayard

 

 

 

 

construction of a daguerreotype
The daguerreotype, "the mirror with a memory."
- Sir Oliver Wendell Holmes
 
Properties of the daguerreotype:
Mirror view of the original scene
Shiny, mirror-like surface

Very delicate, one-of-a-kind direct positive image

 
 
Construction of a daguerreotype: hinged, velvet-lined case, plate, frame, matte, and glass.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Daguerreotype drawbacks:

Daguerre's first camera
Bajac, Quentin. The Invention of Photography. Harry N. Abrams, Inc., New York. 2002.
Long exposure time
Beyond the average person's means
Cameras were large and cumbersome

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

By the end of 1840 three major improvements made:

Robert Cornelius

Robert Cornelius.  Self-Portrait. 1839.
first daguerreotype produced in U.S.
http://z.about.com/d/inventors/1/0/8/N/daguerreotype.jpg
Cameras manufactured with better quality lens
More light-sensitive plates developed
Enriched tones of daguerreotype image with gilding

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Daguerreotype Mania

 

daguerreotype mania

Theodore Maurisset. Fantasies: La Daguerreotypemanie. 1839.
http://www.shinyphotos.com/copy_images/daguerreotypomanie.jpg
1840
First commercial daguerreotype studios open in New York and Paris
1841
First studios in London
1860s
200 studios in New York and 400 in Paris
1865
284 studios in London
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Dagnan-Bouveret. Wedding at the Photographer's. 1879.
Bajac, Quentin. The Invention of Photography. Harry N. Abrams, Inc., New York. 2002.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Daguerreotype apparatus

Daguerreotype studio apparatus
Bajac, Quentin. The Invention of Photography. Harry N. Abrams, Inc., New York. 2002.

Jenny Lind Headrest.  1851.
http://www.dagazine.com/mi/exhibit/setup/Awaiting03-05.jpg

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Miss Dorothy Catherine Draper

John Draper. Miss Dorothy Catherine Draper. c. 1840. Daguerreotype.
Rosenblum, Naomi. A World History of Photography. Abbeville Press, New York. 1989.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Portrait Galleries

 

Nadar's Portrait Studio on the Boulevard des Capucines. 1860.
Bajac, Quentin. The Invention of Photography. Harry N. Abrams, Inc., New York. 2002.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Portrait Gallery

A. Berghaus. M. B. Brady's New Photographic Gallery,New York. 1861. Engraving.
Rosenblum, Naomi. A World History of Photography. Abbeville Press, New York. 1989.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Rollin Heber Neal

Southworth and Hawes. Rollin Heber Neal
(Pastor of the First Baptist Church, Boston). c. 1850. Daguerreotype.
http://www.photomuse.org/media/database/00197.jpg

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Dorothy Catheriene Draper

John Draper. Miss Dorothy Catherine Draper.  c.1840. Daguerreotype.
http://click.si.edu/Image.aspx?image=2931&story=226&back=Story

Southworth and Hawes. Rollin Heber Neal (Pastor of the First Baptist Church, Boston). c. 1850. Daguerreotype.

 

More Southworth and Hawes images

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Picture Factories

 

Behind the scenes in a picture factory.
Bajac, Quentin. The Invention of Photography. Harry N. Abrams, Inc., New York. 2002.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Daguerreotype Saloons

 

Daguerrian Saloon

A traveling daguerrian studio or "Daguerreotype Saloon"

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Daguerreotype saloon. c. 1850.
Bajac, Quentin. The Invention of Photography. Harry N. Abrams, Inc., New York. 2002.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/DSlaneverro2.jpg
A picture's worth?
 
A professionally made daguerreotype cost one to two pounds in London - about a month's salary for the common person
In the United States, a daguerreotype made at the local studio cost $2.50 to $5

The price of a daguerreotype, at the height of its popularity in the early 1850's, ranged from 25 cents for a sixteenth plate (1 5/8" X 1 3/8"), 50 cents for a low-quality "picture factory" likeness to $2 for a medium-sized portrait at Matthew Brady's Broadway studio.  Fifty cents, probably the most common price paid, is roughly $8.75 in 1991 dollars.

http://www.americandaguerreotypes.com/ch2.html
Southworth and Hawes charged $33 for a portrait (about $450 in today's money)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The blossoming popularity and accessibility of the daguerreotype greatly influenced the emergence of new classes of image makers, which then encouraged the development of new classes of images...

 

 

Occupation Portraits

 

Family Vegetable Woman

Carl Ferdinand Stelzner. Mother Albers, The Family Vegetable Woman. c. 1845. Daguerreotype.
Rosenblum, Naomi. A World History of Photography. Abbeville Press, New York. 1989.

 

More occupational daguerreotypes

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Vacation Pictures

 

Platt D. Babbitt. Tourists Viewing Niagara Falls from Prospect Point. c. 1855.
http://click.si.edu/Image.aspx?image=6200&story=750&back=Story

 

 

More Tourist Daguerreotypes

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Post-Mortem Portraits

 

Post-Mortem Portrait

Unknown Photographer. Post-Mortem Portrait, Woman Holding Baby. c. 1855. Daguerreotype.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Photographer Unknown. Father and Mother Holding a Dead Child.  c. 1850 - 1860s.  Daguerreotype.
Marien, Mary Warner.  Photography: A cultural History.  Second edition.  Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 2006.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Pornography

 

Unknown. Two Nude Women Embracing.  c. 1848.  Daguerreotype.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Eugene Durieu.  Academie de l'Album Delacroix reunissant.  1853 - 54.  Paper print.
Marien, Mary Warner.  Photography: A cultural History.  Second edition.  Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 2006.