In France, however, the process flourished. Although Talbot, through an agent named Moses Poole, had taken out a French patent for the calotype in 1841, he does not appear to have restricted its use in that country. Louis Desire Blanquart-Evrard, who worked out many improvements, was accused by his very countrymen of having appropriated Talbot’s invention without even the courtesy of a credit. He coated paper with egg-white or milk-whey to make a smooth surface which would record with more detail the camera’s image. Although first proposed as a negative material, this albumen paper came to be the universal method of making prints throughout the century.
Frederick Langenheim, who purchased Talbot’s American patent, looking at calotypes. Daguerreotype, about 1850. American Museum of Photography, Philadelphia, Pa.
After exposure to sun beneath a negative, the image was toned to a pleasing brown by the same gold chloride formula which daguerreotypists used, and then fixed, washed, and dried.
Blanquart-Evrard was dissatisfied with this printing method, because the printing time was too great to permit mass production. By using for positives a slight modification of Talbot’s calotype negative paper a much shorter exposure, measured in seconds instead of minutes, could be given. The latent image was developed, and the disagreeable color of the image was changed to a rich slate tone by acidifying the hypo fixing bath.
This innovation enabled Blanquart-Evrard to produce photographs in bulk. In the summer of 1851 he published the first number of the Album photo-graphique, a portfolio of single prints of architectural and landscape subjects in the style of Romantic lithographs. His friend Thomas Sutton wrote in 1857 that
the proofs are permanent, they have not faded. They are also beautifully artistic: vigorous, without being glazed, and superb in color, particularly in the lights. A vast number of copies of this Album were sold, and it became necessary for him in 1852 to enlarge his printing establishment. A huge building, resembling a manufactory, was then erected in the grounds of a chateau, belonging to a friend, situated three miles from Lille. Blanquart-Evrard being a man of fortune, handed over the concern to his friend, who had been connected with chemical and dyeing operations, and who speedily mastered the details of Photographic Printing. A staff of thirty or forty assistants, mostly girls, were then instructed, each in a particular branch of the process, and operations commenced on a large scale. About a hundred thousand prints have been issued from that establishment.
An important use for these mass-produced prints was for the illustration of books. The first production of the establishment was a handsome folio volume Egypte, Nubie, Palestine et Syrie, with a hundred and twenty-five prints from paper negatives taken by Maxime Du Camp on a trip to the Middle East with Gustave Flaubert from 1849 to 1851. Blanquart-Evrard’s prints have stood the test of time; those that have come down to us have retained their brilliance and clarity. Strangely enough, his technique never became popular, and it was decades before a developing-out paper was again adopted.
Henry Le Secq. tvhose negatives Blanquart-Evrard printed, specialized in architectural views; he had been appointed photographer to the Historical Monuments Commission, the government bureau charged with the preservation and restoration of cathedrals. So sympathetic and informative were his photographs that one critic went so far as to say that the sculptured portal of
Porte Rouge, Cathedral of Notre Dame, Paris. A calotype from Blanquart-Evrard's portfolio Melanges photographiques, about 1852. Collection V. Barthelemy, Paris
Le secq: Old architecture at Chartres, France. 1852. Calotype negative, dated 1852, collection V. Baillie-leniy, Paris: print courtesy Edward Steichen
du camp: Colossus of Abu Simbel, Egypt. Calotype negative taken in 1850 and printed by Blanquart-Evrard lor the album Egypte, Nubie, Palestine et Syrie, Paris, 1852. Royal Photographic Society, London
Rheims Cathedral could be studied better in them than on the spot, where the eye is overwhelmed by the great scale and wealth of detail. Some of Le Secq’s 11x14 inch paper negatives, signed and dated 1852, still yield brilliant prints. His contemporary Charles Negre made even larger negatives: his photographs of Chartres Cathedral measure 20 x 29 inches.
These French calotypists were by no means satisfied with the uncontrolled image of the camera. To record detail in shadows as well as highlights of buildings. Blanquart-Evrard instructed them to choose a day when the bright sun is momentarily obscured by clouds, and to make half the exposure when the sun is shining, and half when its light is diffused. In his Intervention de l’art dans la photographic, 1863, he suggests a method of
limiting the marvellous but unintelligent work of the camera to the formation of a complete but slightly intense image and giving the photographer a means of continuing or modifying its action at will — in a word, of substituting his action for that of the camera by using chemical means.
Although Talbot’s technique proved to be the first successful way of mak-
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| Envelope used by W. and F. Langenheim. Philadelphia. Collection the author. Rochester. N.Y. |
ing paper photographs, his was not the only method. No sooner had he described photogenic drawing than others broke into public print with ingenious alternative techniques in which the light sensitivity of other metals — iron, platinum, potassium — were employed. In May, 1839, the editor of the Magazine of Science noted that the “periodicals still teem with fresh experiments and receipts relative to this art.”
The most luckless pioneer was Hippolyte Bayard, who exhibited thirty photographs in Paris on June 24, 1839. His method was originaclass="underline" silver chloride paper was held to the light until it had turned dark. It was then plunged into potassium iodide solution and exposed in the camera. The light now bleached the paper, in proportion to its strength, and he thus obtained direct positives, each unique.
But in the spectacular publication of the daguerreotype the work of Bayard was completely overlooked. He commented on his misfortune in a photograph, dated 1840. He showed himself half naked, propped up against a wall as if dead. On the back of the print he wrote:
The body you see is that of Monsieur Bayard . . . The Academy, the King, and all who have seen his pictures admired them, just as you do. Admiration brought him prestige, but not a sou. The Government which gave M. Daguerre too much, said it could do nothing for M. Bayard at all, and the wretch drowned himself.
bayard: Self portrait as a drowned man. Direct positive on paper, signed and dated 1840. Societe Fran-caise de Photographic, Paris
4 PORTRAITS FOR THE MILLION
The demand for cheap portraits became so great in the fifties that the daguerreotypists and calotypists could hardly keep up with it. In a price war operators offered the public daguerreotypes at 50 ¢, at 25 ¢ and finally at 12 1/2 ¢ — made “two at a pop” with a double lens camera. In picture factories division of labor was said to have speeded up the work to a production of “300, 500 and even 1000 daily.” The sitter bought a ticket and was posed by an operator who never left the camera. A plate, already prepared by the polisher and the coater, was brought to him, and he passed it on exposed, in its protective shield, to the mercuralizer who developed it, to the gilder who enriched it, and to the artist who tinted it: fifteen minutes later the customer exchanged his ticket for the finished likeness. Such hastily made portraits were seldom satisfactory; many were left behind by disappointed customers; but new prospects streamed up the stairs to the skylight and the cash rolled in.