153
polarized light provided truth and illustrated the many
possibilities of this medium.
A text entitled Studies of Natural History Under the
Microscope provided the gallery for the microscopic
“portraits” taken. The boards were joined together in a
portfolio and made available for ordering. Presented at
the SFP (1855, 1857, 1859) and at the World Fairs (1855,
1856, 1867), these were greeted by the press with special
interest because of their precision as images. Addition-
ally, they served as advertisements of a renewed union
between photography and science. After sending his il-
lustrated atlas to the Ministry for the State of Education,
Bertsch was decorated with the Legion of honor in 1858.
However, in spite of this reward and the remifi cations of
its results to the Academy of Science in 1853 and 1857,
the scientifi c community could not adapt to this method
and thus remained indifferent to the technique.
As a founder and member of the SFP in 1854, Bertsch
became part of the Board of directors from 1858 to 1870,
and was often named at boards of examiners of appara-
tuses because of his selection of exposures. He regularly
presented to them his improved work, devices, and
techniques. The majority of photographers were often
encumbered by imposing darkrooms in order to achieve
enlarged photographs so Bertsch developed a technique
based on the image captured on small instantaneous ste-
reotypes, which was then increased. Between 1860 and
1863, he invented a solar megascope, which was among
the best of the recently produced enlargers. In spite of
Bertsch’s desire to popularize photography, his remark-
able instruments attracted only some followers.
Biography
A skillful technician and rigorous inventor-manufac-
turer, Bertsch was an easy and modest photo hobbyist
who defended, with enthusiasm, his interpretation of
photography. In spite of some obvious failures, praises
that testifi ed to his work registered him in history. He
is considered by all traditionalists of historiography and
as a fi gure not to omit. According to his birth certifi -
cate, Auguste Nicolas Bertsch was born on December
6, 1813 in the old 2nd district in Paris, today known
as the 9th and not far from the Garnier Opera. He was
the fi rst child of George Frederic Bertsch, a tailor, and
of Anne Francoise Landry. Bertsch lost his father at 9
years old, and married later in life, on March 29, 1865,
to Marie Emilie Pizzetta, 28 years his junior. As a civil
engineer, Bertsch began his photographic activities in
- He had moved in 1848 to the 5th fl oor of the 27
street Fontaine Saint-Georges and joined in 1854 Ca-
mille d’ Arnaud, a student of Nadar’s. Together, they
created a studio-laboratory in the small panelled space
of the 6th stage, but their collaboration lasted only
briefl y. A founding member of the Société française de
photographie in 1854, he presented his work to them and
defended his idea of photography. He remained there
until his death during the Franco-German war in 1870-- Forgotten mainly in connection with the process
of negative-glass, wet collodion, he was remembered for
his application for creating photographs for microscopic
use and for his apparatuses heralding the photographic
practice at the end of the 19th century.
Further Reading
Auguste Bertsch, Photography on glass. Note on the use of fast
collodion, Paris, Alexis Gaudin and N.-B. Delahaye, 1852.
Auguste Bertsch, New cameras of Mr. Bertsch for the enlarging
and the stereoscope, Paris, E Giraud, 1864.
Auguste Bertsch, “Of the amplifi cation of the tests (enlargings),”
in Barreswill and A. Davanne, Photographic Chemistry, 4th
edition, Paris, Gauthier-Villars, 1864, 378–400.
Raymond Lécuyer, History of photography, Paris, SNEP-Il-
lustration, 1945.
Carole Troufl éau, “The legend of Auguste Bertsch. Misfortunes
of photomicrography,” Studies Photographic, n°11, May
2002, 93–111.BEY, MOHAMMED SADIC
(1832–1902)
Photographer, military offi cer
Born in Cairo in 1832, Sadic was educated in Egypt
and in Paris, where he trained as an engineer at the
Ecole Polytechnique. As a Colonel in the Egyptian
army, he was the fi rst to photograph the two holiest
cities of Islam—Medina and Mecca—in 1861, and to
document the Haj. Although the survey account and his
photographs were not published until 1877 (Summary of
the Exploration of the Wajh-Madinah Hijaz Route and
its Military Cadastral Map), his accomplishment was
widely reported. In 1880 he was assigned as treasurer
to the annual caravan bringing the mahmal, the embroi-
dered covering for the Kaaba, from Cairo to Mecca.
He photographed the pilgrims as they camped along
the journey and in Mecca again made photographs of
pilgrims circling the Kaaba, the al-Safa Gate, the tomb
of the Prophet’s parents, and Shaykh ‘Umar al-Shaibi,
the guardian of the key of the Kaaba. In Medina he
photographed Sharif Shawkat Pasha, the guardian of
the Prophet’s Mosque, and made panoramic views of
the city from the walls. Sadic’s earliest photographs of
Medina were exhibited in the Egyptian pavilion at the
Philadelphia Exhibition of 1876. In 1881, he displayed
a portfolio of photographs of the holy cities at the Third
International Congress of Geographers in Venice where
he was awarded a gold medal.
Kathleen Howe