Exhibition Label 1989
VIEWS OF NOTRE DAME AND OF THE CHAMBRE DES DEPUTES, PARIS, BY N. P. LEREBOURS, c. 1840.
On the back of one is the label of the frame dealer Faubonne. Lerebours, an optical instrument maker, quickly embraced photography in his business, and pioneered both the market in architectural and scenic daguerrotypes, and their reproduction as engavings in his serial work Excursions Daguerriennes (1840 - 43). Notre Dame was a favourite photographic subject, the west front especially (of which this is the oldest known study) being a good test of a process's ability to render detail; while the Chambre des Deputes had been the scene of some of the early reports of the daguerrotype and of the conferment of a pension on Daguerre [see his pamphlet below]. These two photographs were used by the Oxford chemistry professor Charles Daubeny from at least 1842 as specimins in his lecture courses, alongside two calotypes by Talbot [shown in case 3]. They may well be those sent to John Ruskin from Paris about 1840, the first daguerrotypes to be seen in Oxford. The full-plate size (8 1/2 x 6 1/2 inches), the lateral reversal of the image, and the absence of gold toning are characteristic of this early period, before portraits were possible. Although that of the Chambre des Deputes is extremely faint, on close examination there remains a sharp and detailed image, including a remarkable feature: the sentry, outside the sentry box right of centre, stood still for long enough (perhaps 20 minutes) to appear in the photograph.
Other narratives:
- 'Photography 150: Images from the First Generation' 1989
- Picture Caption 1991
- The Beginnings of Photography in Oxford
- Daguerreotypes
- Exhibition Label 2005
- Daubeny's 'Specimens of Drawings'
Related Objects:
- Inventory No. 89963, "Photograph (Daguerreotype, Framed) of Notre Dame, Paris, by N. M. P. Lerebours, 1839 or 1840", Lerebours, Nicolas Marie Paymal
- Inventory No. 11950, "Photograph (Daguerreotype, Framed) of the Chambre des Deputes, Paris, by N. M. P. Lerebours, 1839 or 1840", Lerebours, Nicolas Marie Paymal