1194
fi lms; subjects included clowns Footit and Chocolat.
The individual fi lm frames were mounted as perforated
bands in the same manner as the painted strips. These
presentations were eventually superseded by competing
cinematograph shows; the last performance was in 1900.
Between 1903 and 1907 Reynaud worked on a motion
picture viewer for brief stereoscopic sequences. Emile
Reynaud died at Ivry-sur-Seine, January 9, 1918.
Stephen Herbert
RICHEBOURG, PIERRE AMBROISE
(1810–1872)
Pierre Ambroise Richebourg was born in Paris in No-
vember 1810. Of his childhood and his formation few
elements are known, except that he was trained in optics
with Vincent Chevalier, father of Charles Chevalier,
supplier of instruments of Daguerre. He seemed to have
followed the lessons of the latter, of whom he created a
portrait with daguerreotype in about 1844.
He was one of the fi rst to exhibit daguerreotype por-
traits in Paris in late 1839. He was also, according to his
own statements, the fi rst to have carried out a series of
daguerreotype images taken under the solar microscope
for the course of Alfred Donné at the College of France,
in 1840, from which he presented examples in front of
the Academy of Science in Paris. The following year,
following the death of Vincent Knight, he again took up
Knight’s trade and installed his shop and workshop not
far from the Town hall, at 69 quai de l’Horloge (which
will become, following a change of classifi cation in
1851, number 29) where he made photographic portraits,
sold photographic material, and gave lessons. In 1843,
he published an instruction manual, Nouveau manuel
complémentaire pour l’usage pratique du daguerréotype
[the New Complementary Handbook for the Practical
Use of the Daguerreotype]. The following year, his name
appeared under the heading “daguerreotypist” and he
presented in the “optical” section of the images at the
exposure of the l’exposition des Produits de l’Industrie,
where he received a favorable acknowledgement of the
panel.
From the very beginning of the 1850s, he was one
of the fi rst French photographers to be interested
in the new technique of the collodion, for which he
developed, about 1851–52, a protective varnish for
the negative plates. From this date he used this tech-
nique, to which he devoted a booklet in 1853, New
Handbook of Photography on Collodion, in which he
carried out the essence of his production. During the
years 1850-1860, he entered many exhibitions, Paris
(1855 (medal), 57 (medal), 59, 62 (medal), 64, 65, 67),
Brussels (56, 57), London (58, 63), and Oporto (66).
In 1855, he became a member of the Société française
de photographie. Ten years afterwards, indicative of
his fame, he appeared in the Dictionnaire des Contem-
porains of Vapereau.
His abundant production, often of excellent techni-
cal quality with some exceptions, is worthy primarily
due to the diversity of the addressed subjects, charac-
teristic of the multitude of the fi elds of applications
of photography under the second Empire. The various
mentions of the photographer one fi nds on the seals
and publications are indicative of this eclecticism.
In the years 1860, his name in organizations was
frequently followed by the description “ Photographe
des Palais Nationaux “ then, from 1864 as “Photogra-
phe de la Couronne.” In 1858, he was described as a
“photographer of the contests, the offi cial albums, and
the artists” and since 1864, as a “the photographer of
Town hall” and “photographer of the Ministry for the
Art schools.”
One of his fi elds of interest was the reproduction of
works and objets d’art, which he explicitly mentioned
as one of his specialties since 1847–48. It is known
that he made reproductions for various artists, painters
(Billhook, Leroux), sculptors (Préault), and goldsmiths
(Wheat-Meurice). He also made photographic copies of
the paintings in the Salon, in particular those of 1857,
1861, and 1865. The work of Theophilus Gautier ap-
peared at Gide and Baudry in 1859, Trésors d’Art de
la Russie ancienne et moderne, decorated with sixty
photographs chosen from more than two hundred cre-
ated by Richebourg in Russia since 1857.
On this occasion he developed a system that enabled
him to reproduce images of a whole cupola with a high
geometrical degree of accuracy. With this production
a certain number of remarkable series devoted to the
interiors of various palaces and imperial residences
were added: the castle of Fontainebleau (about 1860),
the palace of Luxembourg (about 1859), that of the Ely-
sium (1864), the Pompéienne Villa of Prince Napoleon
(about 1865).
Parallel to this activity Richebourg expressed a taste
for what one can describe as topical photography. Intro-
duced in the mid-1850s, in the imperial milieu, he suc-
cessively photographed the reception of Queen Victoria
at the Town hall of Paris (1855), which he reproduced,
for the people of Paris. He then documented the cer-
emonies of the birth and baptism of the Prince Impérial
(1856), and the festivals of Cherbourg (1858). During
this period Richebourg announced that on request he
would travel around France. It is likely that a number
of engravings made from his photographs and used in
L’Illustration, emanate from such commissions. This
continued until the beginning of the 1870s, through the
series made by Richebourg containing images of vari-
ous inaugurations (le palais du Luxembourg (1858), the
chantier de l’église saint (1861), Arc de Triomphe de
l’actuelle place de la Nation. In 1871, he created some