302
photography by 1855 and ended his days as a museum
caretaker, dying in Brussels on 1 March 1869.
See Also: Le Gray, Gustave; Niépce de Saint-Victor,
Claude Félix Abel; and Blanquart-Evrard, Louis-Désiré
Further Reading
Coppens, Jan, Laurent Roosens and Karel Van Deuren, “Door
de enkele werking van het licht”: introductie en integratie
van de fotografi e in België en Nederland [“By the sole ac-
tion of light”: Introduction and Integration of Photography in
Belgium and The Netherlands], Antwerp: Gemeentekrediet,
1989.
Jammes, André, and Eugenia Parry Janis, The Art of French Calo-
type, with a Critical Dictionary of Photographers, 1845–1870,
Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1983.
Jammes, Isabelle, Blanquart–Evrard et les origines de l’édition
photographique française. Catalogue raisonné des albums
photographiques édités 1851–1855 [Blanquart-Evrard and
the origins of French photographic publishing. Inventory of
the photographic albums published 1851–1855], Geneva:
Librairie Droz, 1981.
Joseph, Steven F., and Tristan Schwilden, A l’aube de la pho-
tographie en Belgique: Guillaume Claine (1811–1869) et
son cercle [At the Dawn of Photography in Belgium: Guil-
laume Claine (1811–1869) and his circle], Brussels: Crédit
Communal, 1991.
Joseph, Steven F., Tristan Schwilden and Marie-Christine Claes,
Directory of Photographers in Belgium 1839–1905, Antwerp
and Rotterdam: Uitgeverij C. de Vries-Brouwers, 1997.
Roosens, Laurent, “Joseph Ernest Buschmann and Guillaume
Claine: Two Belgian Calotypists,” History of Photography,
2 (1978): 117–122.
CLAUDET, ANTOINE FRANCOIS JEAN
(1797–1867)
Henry Snelling, editor of The American Photographic
Art Journal March 1868, 47, wrote of Claudet:
‘M.Claudet is not only one of the most theoretical but
practical daguerreotypists of Europe. His whole soul
seems wrapped up in the study of his art; instead of making
it a mechanical business, he raised it to its proper sphere
amongst the arts and sciences.’Antoine Claudet was born at the Chateau de Rosay,
Lyon, France in August 1797 at the end of the France
Revolution. The second child in a family of six, he was
brought up mainly by his mother from the age of 10, as
his father died in 1807.
When he was 21, Claudet moved to Paris to work as
a banker for his uncle, M. Vital Roux. In Paris Claudet
married Julie Bourdelain, a French girl whose family
had moved to England. In 1825, Claudet was appointed
co-director with George Bontemps (his wife’s nephew),
of M. Ponces Grimblot’s glass works outside Paris.
Following on from this, in 1828 Claudet moved to
89 high Holborn, London to import shades and sheet
glass manufactured in Choisy le Roi. It was through
this introduction to glass thatClaudet fi rst showed his
creative skills as an inventor, when in 1833 he invented
a machine for cutting cylindrical glass, which was later
to be awarded a medal from the Society of Arts.
In 1837. George Houghton joined with Claudet to
set up Claudet and Houghton, an importing company
for the wholesale and retail of glass.
In the autumn of 1839 on hearing about Louis Jacque
Mande Daguerre’s photographic discovery, Claudet
went straight to Paris on the advice of the optician, Noel
Marie Paymal Lerebours. Claudet took lesson from
Daguerre himself, learning the complete daguerreotype
process before buying a licence from him for £200,
which enabled him to perform the process in England.
In 1840 Claudet and Houghton were the sole import-
ers of camera equipment and daguerreotypes in England.
They began selling daguerreotypes imported from Paris
for one to four guineas. In April of that year Claudet
sent a selection of daguerreotypes of European cities and
other scenes to Queen Victoria and Prince Albert. They
bought the best of them and the remaining pictures were
put in an exhibition at the Royal Society. In July of 1840
Claudet took pictures of some of the fi rst daguerreotype
views of London.
In 1841 Claudet opened his fi rst portrait studio on
the roof of the Adelaide Gallery in London and began
taking portrsits for the fi rst time. The glass house was
constructed from blue glass to improve the lighting.
Later in life, Claudet described to Thomas Sutton what
was required to be a photographer:
‘To achieve success in photography requires the chemi-
cal knowledge of a Faraday, the optical knowledge of a
Herschel, the artistic talent of a Reynolds or a Rembrandt,
and the indomitable pluck and energy of a Hannibal.’
The British Journal of Photography, 30 August, 1867,
413–414.
At the time when Claudet fi rst practised photography,
the long exposure times required, made it diffi cult to
achieve good and natural portraits. Often sitters looked
serious and uncomfortable. Sittings could be hard to
endure. Claudet endeavoured to speed up the process
of photography and in May 1841, he discovered that by
combining chlorine and iodine vapours the sensitivity
of the plate was increased. By using this process, he
was able to reduce the exposure time from two minutes
to a few seconds. Claudet may not have been the fi rst
to discover this, he was however the fi rst the publish
the fi ndings in a report to the Academie des Sciences
in Paris and communicated them to the Royal Society
on the 10th of June. Priority of publication was of all
importance and throughout his life, Claudet was eager
to make his discoveries known.
It is thought that Claudet could not afford the entire
patent for the use of the daguerreotype process in Eng-
land, which would have cost £900. Instead an English