Daguerreotype

Daguerreotype of Louis Daguerre in 1844 by Jean-Baptiste Sabatier-Blot

The Daguerreotype process, /dəˈɡɛrtaɪp/ (French: daguerréotype) (also called Daguerreotypy) was the first publicly announced photographic process. The image is formed on a silvered metal plate (historically this was usually copper but brass was also used). In subdued light the plate was exposed to halogen fumes (primarily Iodine but also Bromine and Chlorine were used) and transported to a camera via a light tight plate holder. Exposed in camera the latent image could be developed in the darkroom in two ways: either by exposing the plate to fumes of heated mercury, or in the case of Iodine only sensitisation, by exposing the plate to solar rays through a red filter. The light sensitivity of the plate was then arrested by washing the plate in a common salt solution or one of sodium thiosulphate. To warm the image tone and to preserve the image particles the plate was heated with a gold chloride solution on its surface. Even after gilding the image surface is very delicate and the plates needed to be stored in glazed air tight enclosures.

The Inventors

The man credited with the invention of the daguerreotype, Louis Jacques-Mandé Daguerre, had formed a business partnership with Nicéphore Niépce who died of a stroke, after which his son took his father's place in the partnership. Niépce had started out experimenting with light sensitive materials and had made a contact print from a drawing, and then went on to successfully make the first photomechanical record of an image in the camera obscura - the world's first photograph. Niépce's method was to coat a metal plate with bitumen of Judea (asphalt), and the action of the light differentially hardened the bitumen. The plate was washed with oil of lavender leaving a relief image. Niépce called his process heliography and the exposure for the first successful photograph was eight hours. Niépce had invented an internal combustion engine as well as photogravure.

Françoise Arago noted that these early attempts at photography that required very long exposures could not capture detail properly because of the movement of the sun so that the shadows came first from one direction, and then later another during the course of these long exposures.

Niépce came into contact with Louis Daguerre through their optician, Chevalier, who supplied lenses for their camerae obscurae.

Earlier attempts to record the image in the camera obscura had been made by Josiah Wedgewood, but he reported that his attempts had failed because the light sensitive materials he used were not sensitive enough to record an image.

Processes that use differential hardening of gelatine developed later such as Bromoil, the Kodak Dye Transfer Process and Gum Bichromate.

Niépce's aim originally had been to find a method to reproduce prints and drawings for lithography.

The camera obscura

1840–1841 Camerae obscurae and plates for Daguerreotype called "Grand Photographe" produced by Charles Chevalier (Musée des Arts et Métiers)

L'Atelier de l'artiste, an 1837 daguerre­o­type by Daguerre, claimed to be the first to complete the full process. Click on the pictures to enlarge

The earliest reliably dated photo­graph of a person, taken in spring 1838 by Daguerre. Though it shows Paris' busy Boul­e­vard du Temple, the long exposure time (about ten or twelve minutes) meant that moving traffic cannot be seen; however, the two men at lower left ((one apparently having his boots polished by the other) remained still long enough to be dist­inctly visible. The image is laterally (left-right) reversed, as were most daguerre­o­types, as seen in the build­ing signage at upper left.

The camera obscura is a naturally occurring phenomenon. When a hole in the wall of a dark room faces onto a brightly lit scene - as, for example a dark cave on the edge of a sunlit valley, a picture of the scene outside can be projected upside down onto a sheet of paper or parchment held at a suitable distance from the hole inside the dark room. Early camerae obscurae were large dark rooms of this type (camera obscura is Latin for dark chamber). The system gives a brighter picture when the hole is replaced by a lens, and portable camerae obscurae were built with an internal mirror at 45 degrees to make the image upright. They are fitted with a ground glass viewing screen, and are used as a drawing aid by artists. Daguerre would have been familiar with the camera obscura as a tool in his work as a theatrical scene painter, and had developed a visual public entertainment called the Diorama. By painting on both sides of a piece of white cloth, and illuminating the painting first from the front, and then from the back, an illusion of movement could be obtained to depict a train crash, or the erupting of a volcano. Dioramas were opened in towns in several countries.

Daguerreotype copies and reproductions by lithography

Although daguerreotypes are unique images, they could be copied by re-daguerreotyping the original. Copies were also produced by lithography or engraving. Today, they can be digitally scanned.

The ushering in of the age of photomechanical reproduction

Seen from the perspective of today, when developments in photography have been to increase image quality while reducing the skill and knowledge required by the camera operator, daguerreotypes are expensive and time consuming to produce, are cumbersome and heavy if many images are to be stored in large quantities,and make technical demands on the operator, but when the process was introduced, illustrations in magazines were made by woodcuts or by etching or engraving on copper plates, or by lithography. Portraits were made by amateur and professional artists, but capturing a likeness was revolutionized with the advent of photography although long exposures that necessitated headrests resulted in a proliferation of stiff, rigid poses in most of the surviving daguerreotypes, with some notable exceptions.

The daguerreotype as an astronomical application in the 1870s

Commercial portraiture was only one aspect of the opening up of the age of mechanical reproduction, Arago had in his address to the House of Deputies outlined a wealth of possible applications including astronomy, and the daguerreotype was used as the cutting edge technique in astronomical photography in the 1870s. Although the collodion wet plate process offered a cheaper and more convenient alternative for commercial portraiture and for other applications with shorter exposure times, when the transit of Venus was about to occur, and observations made from several sites on the earth's surface in order to calculate astronomical distances, daguerreotypy proved a more accurate method of making visual recordings through telescopes because it was a dry process with greater dimensional stability, whereas collodion glass plates were exposed wet and the image would move as the plate dried.

The invention of photography (photography and daguerreotypy were one and the same) made cataclysmic changes throughout society regarding what was illusion and what was reality. It was particularly significant that the first process to emerge and to be practised widely was able to faithfully record fine detail at a resolution that most of today's digital cameras are not able to match (when compared with a well exposed and sharp large format daguerreotype). The process is unsurpassed for reproducing fine detail over a long tonal range, and gives an illusion of reality unlike any other process.

The raw material for daguerreotype plates was called Sheffield plate, plating by fusion or cold-rolled cladding and was a standard hardware item produced by heating and rolling silver foil in contact with a copper support. Today, the silver surface is produced by electroplating.

The surface of a daguerreotype is like a mirror, with the image made directly on the silver surface. It is very fragile and can be rubbed off with a finger, and the finished plate has to be angled so as to reflect some dark surface in order to view the image properly. Depending on the angle viewed and the color of the surface reflected into it, the image can change from a positive to a negative. The viewer's own reflection will be seen at the same time.

The fragility of the image is as disadvantage because the daguerreotypist needs to have protective cases or frames prepared, but as the astronomer Arago pointed out in his presentation of the process to the French house of Deputies, the expense of the silver is offset by being able to wipe a plate clean and produce images again and again on the same plate.

When a daguerreotype is viewed, unless it is taken through a mirror, or through a prism with a silvered hypotenuse, the image will be back to front - writing will appear as if it is being read from the back. While glass lantern plates in black and white and coloured transparencies can always be flipped over, the daguerreotype is opaque, and what was photographed can only be viewed from the side of the plate facing the lens.

Copying or lithographing a daguerreotype will revert the image so writing reads correctly. A prism with a silvered hypotenuse was designed to revert the image the right way round, or else a mirror was used, but these could move in a high wind blurring the image, and so photographers made do with mirror reversed images that were sharp.

The very first daguerreotypes were kept wrapped in paper, but the image rubbed off, so a method was devised of framing the finished plates with a protective glass cover. To prevent tarnishing, the air inside the glass cover is replaced by an inert gas, such as nitrogen or argon.

Because of the fragility of the image, the finished daguerreotype plate must be mounted in a protective housing, which means that a daguerreotype is an artifact that consists of the silvered plate as well as its protective housing.

There were two methods of finishing daguerreotypes for protection and display:

In the US and in Britain, the tradition of preserving miniature paintings in a wooden case covered with leather or with paper stamped with a relief pattern continued through to the daguerreotype. Some daguerreotypists were portrait artists who also offered miniature portraits. The Union case was made from a mixture of coloured sawdust and shellac (the main component of wood varnish) formed in a die heated to produce a decorative sculptural relief. The term "Union" referred to the sawdust and varnish mixture. The manufacture of these cases started in 1856; and the cover was lined with red velvet or plush or satin to provide a dark surface to reflect into the plate for viewing and to protect the cover glass. Some cases held two daguerreotypes.

The other method, common in France and on the continent, was based on hanging the daguerreotype on the wall in a frame - simple or elaborate - using a passepartout. Conservators were able to piece together clues that a daguerreotype of Walt Whitman was made in New Orleans, because the frame was made for wall hanging, as in the French and continental style. The clincher was a scrap of paper used to glue the plate into the frame cut from a New Orleans bilingual newspaper of the time Le Mesager Other clues to identifying daguerreotypes used by conservators are hallmarks in the silver plate and even the individual patterns left by different photographers when polishing the plate with a leather buff that leaves parallel lines discernable in the image.

As the daguerreotype itself is made on silver plated copper, it was suited to mounting into lockets as was done with miniature paintings. Other imaginative uses of daguerreotype portraits were to mount them into fob watches and ornate jewelled caskets. and ornate siver boxes and items of jewelry.

Today, developing daguerreotypes in mercury fumes is recognized as a health hazard as well as an environmental danger.

The Bequerel process avoids mercury altogether, but requires longer exposures.

Photographing humans

At the time the process was introduced, daguerreotyping a brightly sunlit subject typically required about ten minutes of exposure in the camera, so the earliest daguerreotypes were of still lifes and landscapes. The oldest well-documented daguerreotype featuring human subjects is Daguerre's own 1838 view of the Boulevard du Temple, a busy street in Paris. The street appears deserted because the traffic (which would have been horse-drawn carriages) was moving and left no image; but a man having his shoes shined, and the bootblack, are visible because they stayed in position long enough for their images to be recorded.

Reduction of exposure time

The very first daguerreotypes used Chevalier lenses that were "slow", and the light sensitive material was silver iodide made by fuming the silver plate with iodine vapor. This meant that the exposure in the camera was too long to conveniently take portraits commercially, and the first subjects taken were immobile subjects such as street scenes, still life architectural studies etc.

Two changes were introduced that shortened the exposure times: one was fitting lenses of a larger diameter to the camera, and the other was a modification to the chemistry used.

When Petzval lenses were introduced in 1841, with a larger effective aperture and the plate was sensitized not only with iodine but also with bromine and chlorine and forming light sensitive crystals of silver iodide, silver bromide and/or silver chloride that are more light-sensitive than silver iodide alone, the exposures were reduced (the lens remaining uncapped for a shorter time), making commercial portraits viable. Increased speed was achieved using the same chemistry in the later silver processes that followed. Usually, it was arranged so that the sitters leaned their elbows on a support such as a posing table whose height could be adjusted or else head rests were used that did not show in the picture and this led to most daguerreotype portraits having stiff, lifeless poses. There were exceptions with lively expressions full of character by photographers who saw the potential of the new medium, and these are represented in museum collections and are the most sought after by private collectors today. Daguerreotypes were mounted in cases under glass with a cover, or else in a frame that could be hung on a wall. They were usually sealed with tape to reduce oxidization and tarnishing of the plate as well as mechanical damage from being touched.

The process was developed by Louis Daguerre together with Joseph Nicéphore Niépce. Niépce had produced the first photographic image in the camera obscura with an eight-hour exposure using bitumen of Judea on a pewter plate developing it in lavender oil, a process he called heliography. [2] The bitumen hardened where light had affected it, while the non-exposed portions were washed away.

Thomas Wedgwood had made outlines and silhouettes of shapes as well as using a glass negative by painting on glass to produce images on white leather using silver chemistry, but he was not successful in producing an image in the camera obscura and neither did he have a method to fix the image by dissolving out the unexposed silver salts. His images had to be viewed in a dimly lit room, and they gradually blackened entirely with exposure to light.

The image in a daguerreotype is often described as being formed by the amalgam, or alloy, of mercury and silver because mercury vapor from a pool of heated mercury is used to develop the plate; but using the Becquerel process (using a red filter and two-and-a-half stops extra exposure) daguerreotypes can be produced without mercury, and chemical analysis shows that there is no mercury in the final image with the Bequerel process. This leads to questioning the theory that the image is formed of amalgam with mercury development.

Exposure times were later reduced by sensitizing the plate with other silver halides: silver bromide and silver chloride, and by replacing the Chevalier lenses with much larger, faster lenses designed by Joseph Petzval. A reduction in camera size and the size of the image will always result in more light reaching the image plane and consequently reduced exposures. This principle was used in Voigtländer's all metal Daguerrotype camera where a smaller image resulted in reducing the exposure time to two seconds. The camera did not catch on and was not a marketing success.

Although the daguerreotype process could only produce a single image at a time, copies could be created by re-daguerreotyping the original, although this proved difficult according to Joseph Maria Eder. says that copying daguerreotypes in the camera was difficult, but good copies are to be found. As with any original photograph that is copied, the contrast increases. With a daguerreotype, any writing will appear back to front. Recopying a daguerreotype will make the writing appear normal, and rings worn on the fingers will appear on the correct hand etc. Another device to make a daguerreotype the right way round would be to use a mirror when taking the photograph.

The daguerreotypes of the 1852 Omaha Indian (Native American) Delegation in the Smithsonian include a daguerrotype copied in the camera (figs 3 and 4 in the link) recognizable by the contrast being high and a black line down the side of the platel

Invention

Since the late Renaissance, artists and inventors had been looking for a mechanical method of capturing visual scenes. Previously, using the camera obscura, artists would manually trace what they saw, or use the optical image in the camera as a basis for solving the problems of perspective and parallax, and deciding color values. The camera obscura's optical reduction of a real scene in three-dimensional space to a flat rendition in two dimensions influenced western art, so that at one point, it was thought that images based on optical geometry (perspective) belonged to a more advanced civilization. Later, with the advent of Modernism, the absence of perspective in oriental art from China, Japan and in Persian miniatures was revalued.

Previous discoveries of photosensitive methods and substances—including silver nitrate by Albertus Magnus in the 13th century, a silver and chalk mixture by Johann Heinrich Schulze in 1724, and Joseph Niépce's bitumen-based heliography in 1822—contributed to development of the daguerreotype. In 1829 French artist and chemist Louis J.M. Daguerre, contributing a cutting edge camera design, partnered with Niépce, a leader in photochemistry, to further develop their technologies.

After Niépce's 1833 death, Daguerre continued to research the chemistry and mechanics of recording images by coating copper plates with iodized silver. Early experiments required hours of exposure in the camera to produce visible results. In 1835 Daguerre discovered—after accidentally breaking a mercury thermometer, according to traditional accounts—a method of developing the faint or invisible images on plates that had been exposed for only 20 to 30 minutes. Further refinement of his process would allow him to fix the image—preventing further darkening of the silver—using a strong solution of common salt. An 1837 still life of plaster casts, a wicker-covered bottle, a framed drawing and a curtain—titled L'Atelier de l'artiste—has been claimed to be the first daguerreotype to successfully undergo the full process of exposure, development and fixation.

The French Academy of Sciences announced the daguerreotype process on January 9, 1839. Later that year William Fox Talbot announced his silver chloride "sensitive paper" process. Together, these announcements mark 1839 as the year photography was born.

Daguerre did not patent and profit from his invention in the usual way. Instead, it was arranged that the French government would acquire the rights in exchange for a lifetime pension. The government would then present the daguerreotype process "free to the world" as a gift, which it did on August 19, 1839. However, on August 14, 1839, a patent agent acting on Daguerre's behalf filed for a patent in England. Consequently, Britain became the only nation in which the purchase of a license was legally required to make and sell daguerreotypes.

Proliferation

André-Adolphe-Eugène Disdéri and Jules Itier in France, and Johann Baptist Isenring in Switzerland, became prominent daguerreotypists. In Britain, however, Richard Beard bought the British daguerreotype patent from Miles Berry in 1841 and closely controlled his investment, selling licenses throughout the country and prosecuting infringers. Among others, Antoine Claudet and Thomas Richard Williams produced daguerreotypes in the UK.

Advertisement for a traveling Daguerreotype photographer, with location left blank

Daguerreotype photography spread rapidly across the United States. In the early 1840s, the invention was introduced in a period of months to practitioners in the United States by Samuel Morse, inventor of the telegraph code. By 1853 an estimated three million daguerreotypes per year were being produced in the United States alone. One of these original Morse Daguerreotype cameras is currently on display at the National Museum of American History, a branch of the Smithsonian Institution, in Washington, DC. A flourishing market in portraiture sprang up, predominantly the work of itinerant practitioners who traveled from town to town. For the first time in history, people could obtain an exact likeness of themselves or their loved ones for a modest cost, making portrait photographs extremely popular with those of modest means. Celebrities and everyday people sought portraits, and workers would save an entire day's income to have a daguerreotype taken of them, including occupational portraits. Notable U.S. daguerreotypists of the mid-19th century included James Presley Ball, Samuel Bemis, Abraham Bogardus, Mathew Brady, Thomas Martin Easterly, François Fleischbein, Jeremiah Gurney, John Plumbe, Jr., Albert Southworth, Augustus Washington, Ezra Greenleaf Weld, and John Adams Whipple.

This method spread to other parts of the world as well. The first daguerreotype in Australia was taken in 1841, but no longer survives. The oldest surviving Australian daguerreotype is a portrait of Dr. William Bland taken in 1845. In 1857, Ichiki Shirō created the first known Japanese photograph, a portrait of his daimyo Shimazu Nariakira. This photograph was designated an Important Cultural Property by the government of Japan.

Modern daguerreotypes

Although the daguerreotype process is usually said to have died out completely in the early 1860s, documentary evidence indicates that some slight use of it persisted more or less continuously throughout the following 150 years of its supposed extinction. A few first-generation daguerreotypists refused to entirely abandon their beautiful old medium when they started making the new, cheaper, easier to view but comparatively drab ambrotypes and tintypes. Historically-minded photographers of subsequent generations, fascinated by daguerreotypes, sometimes experimented with making their own or even revived the process commercially as a "retro" portraiture option for their clients. The daguerreotype experienced a minor renaissance in the late 20th century and the process is currently practiced by a handful of enthusiastic devotees; there are thought to be fewer than 100 worldwide (see list of artists on cdags.org in links below). In recent years artists like Jerry Spagnoli, Adam Fuss, Patrick Bailly-Maître-Grand and Chuck Close have reintroduced the medium to the broader art world. Recent international group exhibits of contemporary daguerreotypists works have been held, notably the 2009 exhibit in Bry Sur Marne France with 182 daguerreotypes by 44 artists and the 2013 ImageObject exhibit in New York City, showcasing 75 artworks by 33 artists. Its appeal lies in the "magic mirror" effect of light striking the polished silver plate and revealing a silver image which can seem ghostly and ethereal even while being perfectly sharp, and in the sense of achievement derived from the dedication and handcrafting required to make a daguerreotype.

Gallery

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  Daguerreotype camera built by La Maison Susse Frères in 1839, with a lens by Charles Chevalier
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  The first authenticated image of Abraham Lincoln was this daguerreotype of him as U.S. Congressman-elect in 1846, attributed to Nicholas H. Shepard of Springfield, Illinois
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  Daguerreotype of Andrew Jackson at age 77 or 78 (1844 or 1845).
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  Daguerreotype of the Duke of Wellington aged 74 or 75, made by Antoine Claudet in 1844.
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  Ichiki Shirō's 1857 daguerreotype of Shimazu Nariakira, the earliest surviving Japanese photograph
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  The solar eclipse of July 28, 1851 is the first correctly exposed photograph of a solar eclipse, using the daguerreotype process.

Six daguerreotypes show a view of San Francisco, California, in 1853.

See also

• Joseph-Philibert Girault de Prangey
• Daguerreobase

Further reading

• Newhall, Beaumont The Daguerreotype in America ISBN 0486233227 ISBN 978-0486233222 Dover Publications.
• Gernsheim, Helmut, and Alison Gernsheim. L.J.M. Daguerre: the history of the diorama and the daguerreotype. New York: Dover Publications, 1968. ISBN 0-486-22290-X
• Barger, Susan M and White, William B. The Daguerreotype: Nineteenth-Century Technology and Modern Science Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1991
• Rudisill, Richard. Mirror image: the influence of the daguerreotype on American society. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1971.
• Coe, Brian. The birth of photography: the story of the formative years, 1800–1900. London: Ash & Grant, 1976. ISBN 0-904069-06-0.
• Sobieszek, Robert A., Odette M. Appel-Heyne, and Charles R Moore. The spirit of fact: the daguerreotypes of Southworth & Hawes, 1843–1862. Boston: D.R. Godine, 1976. ISBN 0-87923-179-3
• Pfister, Harold Francis. Facing the light: historic American portrait daguerreotypes: an exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery, September 22, 1978 – January 15, 1979. Washington, D.C.: Published for the National Portrait Gallery by the Smithsonian Institution Press, 1978.
• Richter, Stefan. The art of the daguerreotype. London: Viking, 1989. ISBN 0-670-82688-X.
• Barger, M Susan, and William B White. The daguerreotype: nineteenth-century technology and modern science. Washington: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1991. ISBN 0-87474-348-6
• Wood, John. America and the daguerreotype. Iowa City: University of Iowa Press, 1991. ISBN 0-87745-334-9.
• Wood, John. The scenic daguerreotype: Romanticism and early photography. Iowa City: University of Iowa Press, 1995. ISBN 0-87745-511-2.
• Lowry, Bates, and Isabel Lowry. The silver canvas: daguerreotype masterpieces from the J. Paul Getty Museum. Los Angeles: The Museum, 1998. ISBN 0-89236-368-1.
• Davis, Keith F., Jane Lee Aspinwall, and Marc F. Wilson. The origins of American photography: from daguerreotype to dry-plate, 1839–1885. Kansas City, MO: Hall Family Foundation, 2007. ISBN 978-0-300-12286-2.
• Kenney, Adele. Photographic Cases Victorian Design Sources 1840–1870, 2001 ISBN 0-7643-1267-7.
• Hannavy, John. Case Histories: The Presentation of the Victorian Photographic Portrait 1840–1875, 2005. ISBN 1-85149-481-2.

External links

• Historique et description des procédés du daguerréotype rédigés par Daguérre, ornés du portrait de l'auteur, et augmentés de notes et d'observations par MM Lerebours et Susse Frères, Lerebours, Opticien de L'Observatoire; Susse Frères, Éditeurs. Paris 1839 (French)]
• R. Derek WOOD, A State Pension for L. J. M. Daguerre for the secret of his daguerreotype technique Published in the quarterly journal Annals of Science September 1997 (Vol 54, No.5, pp. 489–506)
• WATCH: George Eastman House "The Daguerreotype – Photographic Processes
• The J. Paul Getty Museum Early Photography: Making Daguerreotypes video
• Musée Orsay Daguerreotype Collection - under heading Overview click on Index of Works and search DAGUERREOTYPE
• Hill, Levi L. A Treatise on the Daguerreotype. The Whole Art Made Easy. 1850
• The Daguerreotype Process. Sussex PhotoHistory.
• Daguerre (1787–1851) and the Invention of Photography. Malcolm Daniel, Department of Photographs, The Metropolitan Museum of Art
• The Daguerreian Age in France 1839–1855. Malcolm Daniel. Department of Photographs, The Metropolitan Museum of Art
• *Xiaoqing Tang, Paul A. Ardis, Ross Messing, Christopher M. Brown, Randal C. Nelson, Patrick Ravines, and Ralph Wiegandt. University of Rochester, Rochester Digital analysis and restoration of daguerreotypes University of Rochester
• The Nanotechnology of the Daguerreotype University of Rochester
• Cincinnati Waterfront Panorama Daguerreotype University of Rochester
• International Contemporary Daguerreotypes community (non profit org)
• The Daguerreian Society: History, and predominantly US oriented database & galleries
• The Daguerreotype: an Archive of Source Texts, Graphics, and Ephemera
• Daguerreotype Portraits and Views, 1836–1864: US Library of Congress
• The American Handbook of the Daguerreotype from Project Gutenberg
• The Social Construction of the American Daguerreotype Portrait
• 19th Century New Orleans Photography
• Photography, Old & New Again by John Fleischman and Robert Kunzig from Discover Magazine Article on Daguerreotypes and Holograms
• A University of Utah Podcast on Daguerreotype Theories
• Daguerreotype Plate Sizes
• Library of Congress Collection
• Photos The Boston Public Library's Cased Photo Collection on Flickr.com
• Daguerreotype collection at the Canadian Centre for Architecture
• First mention of the use of bromine in daguerreotypy
• The first photograph