The Gift of the Daguerreotype

 

 

 

Boulevard du Temple, Paris, 3rd arrondissement, a street scene captured in a daguerreotype in either 1838 or 1839 and believed to be the earliest photograph showing a living person. It is a view of a busy street, but because the exposure time was at least 10 minutes, the moving traffic left no trace. The two men near the bottom left corner, one apparently having his boots polished by the other, stayed in one place long enough to be visible. It is also thought that just to the right of the two men, another person can be seen, sitting on a bench and reading a paper 176 years ago. #

19th century  Venice photos show empty squares and tranquil canals The 170-year-old photos snapped or collected by the influential art critic are some of the earliest of Venice They have been confirmed as daguerreotypes belonging to Ruskin after being purchased at an auction in Cumbria Daguerreotype, the first announced photographic process, involves images developed on a polished metal plate Collection of daguerreotypes were purchased by collectors and historians Ken and Jenny Jacobson They later confirmed their suspicion that the images belonged to Ruskin and have co-authored a new book A bidding war with another collector raised the price to £75,000 from the original estimate of just £80 These 170-year-old images reveal what life was like in the world’s most famous canal city before it was mobbed by hordes of gondola-riding tourists. Some of the earliest photos of Venice – snapped in the 1840s and 1850s – show an empty piazza in front of St Mark’s Basilica, the Ca’ d’Oro palace under restoration, and a Grand Canal with very little boat traffic. The tranquil scenes are a far cry from modern-day Venice, which is visited by an estimated 10 million tourists a year. Scroll down for video  +9 This photo from the book shows Venice's tranquil Grand Canal and Ca' d'Oro palace under restoration in 1845 +9 The Ducal Palace (right), Zecca di Venezia (left) and the St Mark's Campanile bell tower are pictured, circa 1851 The black and white photos, discovered in a UK country auction in 2006, have been confirmed as daguerreotypes – images developed on a polished metal plate – that belonged to influential Victorian art critic and writer John Ruskin. The ‘lost photographs’ were taken mostly by Ruskin, who died in 1900 at the age of 80, while he was working on his three-volume treatise on Venetian art and architecture. They include the largest collection of daguerreotypes of Venice and possibly the earliest surviving photos of the French and Swiss Alps. The photos have been preserved and identified by collectors and historians Ken and Jenny Jacobson, who have co-authored a book that documents Ruskin’s photography. +9 A small group of people gathers at the piazza in front of St. Mark's Basilica in Venice in 1845; today the square is teeming with tourists +9 +9 These photos show animal heads (left) and Noah's vine carved into pillars at Ducal Palace, which is now a museum +9 John Ruskin snapped or collected the images while he was working on his three-volume treatise on Venetian art and architecture Based on their suspicion that the images belonged to Ruskin, the Essex couple acquired the lot at an auction in Cumbria, where Ruskin lived. A bidding war with another collector raised the price to £75,000 from an original estimate of just £80. Ken Jacobson, who has been collecting historic photos with his wife for almost 45 years, said: ‘The discovery of 188 previously unknown John Ruskin daguerreotypes has been the most exciting of our career. +9 This photo shows Palazzo Gritti-Badoer with laundry hang drying on lines outside (circa 1846-1852) +9 Ducal Palace was a popular photography spot; this image shows a south-facing window looking out towards a lagoon (circa 1849-1852) +9 This photo from John Ruskin's collection shows moored boats in the harbour at Arona, Italy on a summer day in July 1858 ‘The propitious circumstances of this find were truly magnified many times over by the fascinating discoveries we made during our research and the generosity, intelligence and friendship we shared with other scholars and our conservators. ‘We feel that the quality and unorthodox style of many of Ruskin’s daguerreotypes will come as a major surprise to both photographic historians and those in the field of Ruskin scholarship. ‘It is an astonishing accomplishment for a polymath better known for his achievements in so many other disciplines. Ruskin’s daguerreotypes would be a sensational new revelation in the history of photography even if he were completely unknown. We hope the work will be as intriguing to others as it has been to us.’ Published by Bernard Quaritch, the 432-page book, Carrying Off the Palaces: John Ruskin’s Lost Daguerreotypes, contains a fully illustrated catalogue raisonne of the 325 known daguerreotypes, plus details about the Jacobsons’ research.

The Gift of the Daguerreotype ALAN TAYLOR In 1829, a French artist and designer named Louis Jacques Mande Daguerre struck a partnership with fellow inventor Joseph-Nicephore Niépce to develop a method to permanently capture the fleeting images visible in a camera obscura. Niépce passed away suddenly in 1833, but Daguerre kept experimenting, finally achieving success around 1834. The daguerreotype process used a polished sheet of silver-plated copper, treated with iodine to make it light-sensitive, which was exposed (for several minutes or more) under a lens, then “fixed” using mercury vapor. The existence of the process was first announced to the public in January of 1839—followed by an extraordinary move by the French government that would fuel the rapid growth of photography worldwide. Recognizing the enormous potential of this invention, the French government made a deal with Daguerre, acquiring the rights to the process in exchange for lifetime pensions for both Daguerre and Niépce’s son. Then the government gave it all away. On August 19, 1839, the details of the new daguerreotype process were presented to the public as a gift to the world from France. Boulevard du Temple, Paris, 3rd arrondissement, a street scene captured in a daguerreotype in either 1838 or 1839 and believed to be the earliest photograph showing a living person. It is a view of a busy street, but because the exposure time was at least 10 minutes, the moving traffic left no trace. The two men near the bottom left corner, one apparently having his boots polished by the other, stayed in one place long enough to be visible. It is also thought that just to the right of the two men, another person can be seen, sitting on a bench and reading a paper 176 years ago. # Louis Daguerre SHARE PHOTO   A daguerreotype of McKay's Shipyard in East Boston made around 1855. # Southworth and Hawes / Museum of Fine Arts, Boston SHARE PHOTO Portrait of a man named Rollin Heber Neal, made between 1843 and 1862. # Southworth & Hawes / George Eastman House SHARE PHOTO A portrait of an unidentified woman made by Mathew Brady between 1851 and 1860. # Mathew Brady / Library of Congress SHARE PHOTO Family members of 19th-century poet Henry W. Longfellow, during a visit to Niagara Falls in June of 1862. # Longfellow National Historic Site / National Park Service SHARE PHOTO   Daguerreotype portrait of General Zachary Taylor in uniform, taken by Mathew Brady during or after the Mexican-American War, between 1846 and 1849. Taylor was later elected as the 12th President of the United States, serving until his death in office in 1850. # Matthew Brady / The Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Yale University SHARE PHOTO Portsmouth Square, San Francisco, California, in January of 1851. # Sterling C. McIntyre / Library of Congress SHARE PHOTO A self-portrait of Robert Cornelius, made in October or November of 1839. This is believed to be the earliest extant American portrait photo. Shortly after the French announcement of the Daguerreotype process, Cornelius, a young Philadelphian working out of doors to take advantage of the light, made this head-and-shoulders self-portrait using a box fitted with a lens from an opera glass. In the portrait, Cornelius stands slightly off-center with hair askew, in the yard behind his family's lamp and chandelier store, peering uncertainly into the camera. # Library of Congress SHARE PHOTO Gertrude Mercer Hubbard Grossman, Roberta Wolcott Hubbard Bell, and Mabel Hubbard Bell as girls, circa 1860. # Library of Congress SHARE PHOTO   The United States Capitol building in 1851. # John Plumbe / Library of Congress SHARE PHOTO A formally dressed man shows nine different daguerreotypes in a display frame to promote a daguerreotype studio in one of the first known photographic advertisements, made in 1845. # The J. Paul Getty Museum SHARE PHOTO Joseph Avery, stranded on rocks in the Niagara River in July of 1853. Three men boating in the Niagara River were overwhelmed by the river’s strong current, lost control of their boat, and crashed into a rock. The current carried two men immediately over the falls to their deaths. The daguerreotype shows the third man, stranded on a log that had jammed between two rocks. He weathered the current for 18 hours before succumbing to the river. The image is one of the earliest examples of a news photograph. # Platt Babbitt / Library of Congress SHARE PHOTO Portrait of an unidentified man made by Mathew Brady between 1844 and 1860. # Mathew Brady / Library of Congress SHARE PHOTO   The Clark sisters, in a portrait made between 1840 and 1860. Writing on the back identifies the women as (left to right) “Aunt Harriet Allen, Aunt Ladonna Hoy, Grandma Joanette C-B, Aunt Julia Millard, and Aunt Laura” # Library of Congress SHARE PHOTO A view of San Francisco Harbor, seen in January of 1851. # Sterling C. McIntyre / Library of Congress SHARE PHOTO Supreme Court Justice Joseph Story, in a portrait made between 1844 and 1845. # Matthew Brady / Library of Congress SHARE PHOTO A large group of schoolchildren, with their teacher, standing in a town street in the 1850s. # Library of Congress SHARE PHOTO   Novelist and playwright George Lippard, in a portrait made around 1850. # Library of Congress SHARE PHOTO A daguerreotype of the Ben Campbell steamship at landing, between 1852 and 1860. # Library of Congress SHARE PHOTO A portrait of fur trader Antoine Le Claire. # Library of Congress SHARE PHOTO A portrait of a man and woman, titled simply “Thos. F. Leete.” # Library of Congress SHARE PHOTO   The children of Lt. Montgomery C. Meigs, probably Mary Montgomery, Charles, Montgomery, and John Rodgers, in a donkey cart with a dog, circa 1850. From a note accompanying the image: “The children of Lt. M.C. Meigs, Eng. Corp U.S.A. taken in Detroit, Mich. This donkey was bought from two French trappers and missionaries to the Indians who came down from the primeval forests of the N.W.” # Library of Congress SHARE PHOTO Portrait of an unidentified man, possibly Native American, possibly Choctaw, made in the 1850s. # Library of Congress SHARE PHOTO