157
by daguerreotype process; they display great sense of
composition, awareness of background and props, and
naturalness in pose and expression.
Later, in the collection of Voigtländer, two daguerreo-
types of Biewend were found, on which were mentioned
the technical data. The photos of Biewend have suppos-
edly arrived in Voigtlander’s collection because they
were related. He stayed in Saint Georg, is now a part
of Hamburg.
Unfortunately, during the years people destroyed
more than one hundred of his daguerreotypes with
themes as landscapes, architecture and portraits. In
1876, he retired from the bank. Biewend died at the age
of seventy-four on 31 December 1888 in Hamburg.
Johan Swinnen
See Also: Germany; Daguerreotype; Coloring by
Hand.
Further Reading
Gernsheim, Helmut and Gernsheim, Alison, The Origins of Pho-
tography. Thames and Hudson, London, 1982.
Kempe, Fritz, Daguerretypie in Deutschland: vom Charme der
frühen Fotografi e. Seebruck am Chiemsee hering Verlag,
1979.
BIGGS, THOMAS (1822–1905)
English photographer
Captain, later Colonel, Thomas Biggs produced a body
of work in India in the mid 1850s using post-waxed
paper negatives, long after most photographers had
eschewed paper in favour of collodion on glass.
Born in Hertfordshire, England, Biggs joined the
Indian Army in 1842, serving in the Bombay Artil-
lery, before learning photography with the East India
Company and being seconded for a few months—from
February to December 1855—to the post of Government
Photographer in the Bombay Presidency, then the name
given to a large area of British India.
His assignment was to start to document the many
historic architectural sites within the area of the Bombay
Presidency.
With the task only partially completed, he returned
to military duty in December 1855, being succeeded by
Dr William Henry Pigou who continued his work.
Certain aspects of the work did not suit his tastes
—in letters in the India Offi ce records, he expressed
his distaste at some of the sculptures he was required to
photograph and wrote of their ‘disgusting immorality’
(see India Through the Lens, Prestel, 2000).
A second series of assignments in the 1860s resulted
in further images, still apparently using paper negatives,
which were widely published. There is no record of
him continuing with his photography after returning
to England.
John HannavyBINGHAM, ROBERT JEFFERSON
(1824–1870)
On the backs of carte-de-visite photographs produced
by British-born photographer Robert J. Bingham in
his studio at 58 Rue de Larochefoucauld in Paris was
printed the claims ‘inventeur du procedé collodion’ and
‘Medailles de 1re Classe 1855–1862.’ He was a resident
in Paris by 1851, and operated a portrait studio at that
address from 1861 until 1870.
He was one of several photographers who claimed to
have successfully experimented with collodion before
Archer published his account of the process in 1851.
His claim was based on a note in the 7th edition of his
manual Photographic Manipulation published in 1850,
a note which largely reproduced a similar account pub-
lished by le Gray in his Traite Pratique de Photographie
sur Papier et sur Verre in 1850. The process had been
predicted since 1847.
Born in Billesdon, Leicestershire, England, in 1825,
as the son of a customs offi cer. He moved to Paris c.1850,
and his studio initially specialised in the photography
of works of art. He was certainly in Paris by the date in
1851 when the contract for printing the illustrations for
the Reports of the Juries of the Great Exhibition was
being assigned. The contract was initially offered to
him through the London art dealer Richard Colls, but
was withdrawn after Talbot was granted an injunction
in January 1852.
John HannavyBIOT, JEAN-BAPTISTE (1774–1862)
French scientist
Jean-Baptiste Biot was born in Paris 21 April 1774, the
son of Joseph Biot, an upwardly mobile government
functionary originally from Lorraine. After a classical
education at the respected Collège Louis-le-Grand in
Paris, Biot began taking private lessons in mathematics.
Hoping for a career in science, he resisted his father’s
wishes that he enter into commerce. Enlisting in the
army in 1792 allowed him to evade his father’s control
while simultaneously earning the experience and record
of government service that helped him gain entrance to
the newly formed École polytechnique in 1794. Biot
soon emerged as an exceptionally promising young
scientist with widely related interests in astronomy,
optics, mathematics, physics, and chemistry.
In 1801, Biot was elected to the Académie des sci-
ences. Soon after, he was invited to join the Société