623
Biography
Andreas Groll was born on November 30, 1821 in Vi-
enna as a son of servants Anna and Joseph Paul Groll. In
1845 he married Josepha Brenner and found in the same
year (until 1853) a job as a lab assistant at the Viennese
polytechnic institute where he had worked since 1844
with professor von Schroetter as an assistant. In 1857 he
opened his fi rst studio in Vienna. He had already seen
success as a special photographer, awarded in 1855 at the
Paris world exhibition. He also documented important
architectural projects of the Viennese urban extension
(Votivkirche, arsenal). In 1861 he became a member
of the photographic society in Vienna, where in 1864
he showed an extensive spectrum of his past work in a
large exhibition (including nine Daguerreotypes from
1843). In 1865 he appeared in a publisher‘s catalogue
with 788 numbers. Groll died on 12 October 1872 of
typhoid fever in Vienna.
See also: Austro-Hungarian empire, excluding
Hungary; Societies, groups, institution, and
exhibitions in Austria; and Industrial Photography.
Further Reading
Starl, Timm. Biobibliografi e zur Fotografi e in Österreich 1839
bis 1945, 1998ff. (wird regelmäßig aktualisiert) http://alt.
albertina.at/d/fotobibl/einstieg.html
Starl, Timm. Lexikon zur Fotografi e in Österreich 1839 bis 1945,
Wien: Album, Verlag für Photographie, 2005.
GROS, BARON JEAN BAPTISTE-LOUIS
(1793–1870)
Baron Jean Baptiste-Louis Gros was born in Ivry-sur-
Seine on February 9, 1793. His father was an employee
of the Duchess of Bourbon. Little is known of his
training, except that he traveled and practiced drawing
and painting as an amateur. In 1823, he entered the
diplomatic service as a free attache with the Legation
of Lisbon. In 1828, he was sent to Egypt and received
the title of baron the same year. A diplomatic missions
then brought him to Mexico City, where in 1831 he was
at the head of a diplomatic mission, then in Bogota, as
chargé d’ affaires, in 1838.
It is there that he took note of the invention of Da-
guerre and where he created his fi rst daguerreotypes,
probably, at the beginning of the 1840s. To do this he
used the Chevalier lens, applied the bromine according
to the technique recommended by Foucault, and resorted
to the iodide box developed at that point by the baron
Séguier. In 1841, he presented to the Academy of Sci-
ence of Paris a way to reproduce colors but appeared
unable to bring the least proof of its invention. Two
daguerreotypes of Bogota created during this period
are known today.
Shortly after, he returned to France, sometime
between 1844 and 1847. His photographic activity
continued in various fi elds: about 1845, he created as-
tronomical pictures with Eugene Durieu, while making
many architectural daguerreotypes of French monu-
ments, many in Paris (the Pantheon, Our-injury, quays
of the Seine) and in the province (Ste Croix of Orleans,
Amboise, Chambord). In 1847, he published the fi rst
of his two works devoted to photography “ Recueil de
mémoires et de procédés nouveaux concernant la photo-
graphie». In 1850 he wrote his second treaty “Quelques
notes sur la photographie.”
At the end of 1840, diplomatic missions were car-
ried out it in Argentina (Plata), then in England, and
in London in particular. In May 1850 he was sent to
Athens to settle the Anglo-Greek disagreements, in
particular those relating to the transfer of the marble of
the Parthenon. There he created approximately eighty
daguerreotypes, views of monuments, architectural
details, general scenes, and several views showing,
according to statements from his contemporaries, the
waves moving.
From 1851 to 1856, while living in Paris, he devoted
most of his time to photography, and judging by the
exceptional quality of the plates he produced during that
time, Gros fully masters his technique. In this period he
connected with the photographic medium that seemed
closest: he then enjoyed a great reputation as a techni-
cian, an appropriate title if one judges by the exceptional
quality of the preserved plates. In 1851, he was one of
the founding members of the Société heliographique
of which he was the inaugural president, and wrote
several of the articles in the fi rst issue of La Lumière.
In the autumn of 1851, he was again in London, where
he is known to have photographed the interior of the
Crystal Palace. A little later La Lumière tells us that he
created fi ve daguerreotypes from the Fête des Aigles sur
le Champ de Mars, which formed a panorama of fi ve
plates. In 1853, he made prints using negative paper
coated with collodion.
In 1854, he was one of the founding members of the
Société française de photographie, which replaced the
Société heliographique, and exhibited at its fi rst exposi-
tion in 1855 his “memories of Athens.” Ernest Lacan
saw at his place, rue Saint Lazare, the daguerreotypes
of Athens and the images of Egypt, now disappeared,
and of South America.
In the second half of the 1850s, his diplomatic activity
took him abroad again and away from the photographic
medium. He was sent as plenipotentiary to Bayonne to
determine the exact layout of the Franco-Spanish border,
then to China in 1857. From this date the honors fl ow:
he was made a grand Offi cer of the Legion of Honour,
then Grand Cross of Isabelle the Catholic. In 1858, he
was named ambassador extraordinaire and then received