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collection, in order to solve fi nancial problems. The sale
took place in June 5th 1857 at the Drouot’s hotel, the
exhibition of the prints was the day before and it counted
58 names. A public noticeboard announced “Sale of
photographs. Prints of amateurs and artists.” The 1857
sale was successful, several photographs exceeded the
double of their initial price, which was the fi rst time in
photographic history. In the Revue photographique of
July 5th 1857 one can fi nd an interesting commentary
about collectors :
“The ones [photographs] which had reached exceptional
value were perfect in every respect, and it has been dem-
onstrated then, that collectors taste was already formed,
which we were far from expecting. [...] A reproduction of
Leonard de Vinci Cene, by M. Sacchi, even if it was still
not up to the mark, has been pushed up to 125 francs.”
The 1857 SFP sale indicates then that at this time
there were a certain number of photographs collectors,
certainly since the paper process expansion, whose tastes
were already formed, which assumes the existence of a
photographic market more or less offi cially since 1855,
out of which the critic emerges as a new phenomenon.
Photography on paper certainly attracted more people
than the daguerreotype which was unique and diffi cult
to look at. The 1850s were also the golden age of calo-
type during which, following the example of painting,
photography required schools.
This new situation was confi rmed during the sec-
ond sale of the SFP on May 18 and 19, 1858. It was
announced in the journal Cosmos in December 1857
and took place in the Drouot Hotel in Paris. 441 photo-
graphs were sold, 10 to 20 per photographers amongst
whom one could mention Olympe Aguado, Gustave
Le Gray, Camille Silvy, Mailand, Paul Gaillard, Pierre
Richebourg, Alphonse Davanne and Paul Perier. A com-
mentary by Robert de Lasteyrie in the journal Le Siècle
in June 25th 1858 indicated the increased numbers of
collectors interested in photography:
“Each year, we make a sale of it. [...] the preceding exhibi-
tion, unfortunately too short, had attracted a lot of [the]
curious. The sale itself had proved that the number of true
amateurs, [and] collectors of photographs, had regularly
increased amongst us, and that their taste is developing
more each day. Such pieces that one fi nds in every dealer
at 5 francs are sold 25, 30 and up to 40 francs. Isn’t it
the best evidence that, in a beautiful photograph, there
are some very artistic qualities, which can’t escape to the
connoisseur eye? The only work doesn’t produce such
differences in the results.”
This second success confi rmed the cause of photo-
graphic art and the concept of the collector with a high
degree of knowledge of photography. Two other sales
were organised during this period, the fi rst in Brussels,
from August 15th to October 31st, 1857, and the sec-
ond in Amsterdam in 1858. As underlined by Robert
de Laysterie, the development of the collector’s taste
was directly linked to the emergence of photographic
schools.
“Little by little schools are formed and are distinguished,
thus, right now, the slightest trained amateur eye will
recognise without pain the English or Italian photographs
from those made in France.”
What gave to the 1858 sale a particular appeal, was
that it gathered a great number of works by foreign
amateurs and artists which couldn’t be found in the
shops. The striking matter of fact, according to Robert de
Lasteyrie, was the “discernment, the uncluttered taste of
the public buyer.” Most of the big monumental plates of
Baldus and Bisson sold for twice their price. Landscapes
were largely represented in this sale, and “the public
seems to have keenly tasted their work.” The portraits
were less appreciated, while reproductions of works
of art had stronger success. The buyers were mainly
photographers and collectors like Adolphe Moreau,
Dupuy Montbrun and Hulot. The average print price was
between 2 and 6 francs (6 and 12 euros today).
This context seemed to be the same in England. As
underlined by Mark Haworth-Booth, the fact that the
1858 exhibitions of the Photographic Society of London
were staged and opened by Queen Victoria and Prince
Albert indicates that photography “had gained a fashion-
ability year by year during the 1850s. Photographs were
not only exhibited in important art context but acquired
by collectors.”
This fashionability fi rst infl uenced princes and prin-
cesses of European courts who encouraged, bought and
commissioned photographs. Napoleon III in France,
Victoria and Albert in England, Pedro II in Brasilia,
were important collectors of photographs as well. The
Napoleon III collection was shown in an exhibition at the
Bibliothèque nationale de France in Paris in 2004, un-
der Sylvie Aubenas direction. The collection consisted
of various major works containing historical themes,
and were presented in luxuriously bound albums, that
came from the libraries of the state residencies. Those
images had originally come from public commissions,
photographic campaigns encouraged by Napoleon III
or by his ministries, or as gifts made to the prince with
the hope of attracting his favour and some subsidy. Far
from trying to support this new art, seen above all as a
technical progress, the prince’s ambition was to consti-
tute, by the means of photography, a “historical gallery
of the reign.” The veracity of the photographic image,
with the modernity that it symbolised, made it the ideal
auxiliary of the reign great realisation.
The Victoria and Albert collection was also exhibited
within an exhibition and a catalogue in 1998, The Muse-
um and the Photograph. Collecting Photography at the