830
year, the Leptographic Company opened a branch in
Paris, reported by Marc-Antoine Gaudin in la Lumière,
August 30, 1866, and offered samples of the new paper
to members of the Société française de photographie
for them to experiment with. For a variety of reasons, it
would be a further fi fteen years before commercial-scale
production of collodio-chloride papers became success-
ful—and in Germany rather than France or Spain.
It is apposite, and perhaps signifi cant, to observe
that the majority of the surviving examples of Laurent’s
work are printed on albumen paper rather than his own
invention.
A member of the Société française de photographie
since 1859, and a regular exhibitor in Paris where his
prints and albums found a ready and wealthy clientele,
Laurent exhibited only once in London, at the 1858
exhibition of the Photographic Society.
Architectural views of Granada, Toledo, Segovia,
Seville, and elsewhere all attest to the quality of his out-
put. And by the mid 1860s, as Laurent y Cia, he was the
proprietor of the largest photographic publishing house
in Spain, with a growing reputation—and demand for
his work—wider afi eld.
In the 1860s alone, the company produced over twen-
ty catalogues listing their huge archive of images.
His 1866 album of 164 photographs from the collec-
tion of the Prado Museum in Madrid, marketed through
his own gallery in Paris, was distributed for the British
market by Marion & Co. of London.
Laurent y Cia had the exclusive photographic fran-
chise within the Prado from the late 1870s until his
death, and produced a huge catalogue of images of the
masterpieces contained within the museum. An excep-
tional panorama, dating from 1882–83 and showing the
museum’s central gallery, survives in the Prado’s own
collection of Laurent’s work.
Another album depicted the treasures of the Madrid
Armoury, and as one of the images is titled, in the
negative, Armeria de Madrid. 337. Trophée formé de
diverses armes, oeuvres de Mr. E. de Zuloaga. J. Lau-
rent Madrid, we can recognize that the published album
contained only a very small proportion of the images
he had produced.
Uncertainty surrounds the exact date of Laurent’s
death; certainly no later than 1892, some historians
have offered a date as early as 1883, with others sug-
gesting the late 1880s or 1890. The studio was appar-
ently owned, or at least operated, by his step-daughter
Catalina and her husband Alfonso Roswag after 1883.
Roswag had been employed some years earlier as one
of Laurent’s team of photographers, and the studio of
Laurent y Cia remained in their hands until Alfredo’s
death in 1899.
John Hannavy
See also: Clifford, Charles; and Spain.
Further Reading
Fontanella, Lee, La Historia de la Fotografía en España desde sus
orígenes hasta 1900. Madrid: Ediciones El Viso, 1981.
López Beriso, M., “Jean Laurent y José Martínez Sánchez: Ojos
distintos para una sola mirada.” In La Andalucía del siglo
XIX en las fotografías de J. Laurent y Cía, 187–193. Seville:
Junta de Andalucía, 1998.
Jacobson, Ken, and Anthony Hamber, Etudes D ́Apres Nature:
19th century Photographs in Relation to Art: Artists’ Studies,
Works of Art, Portraits of Artists, Mixed Media. Peches Bridge:
Ken and Jenny Jacobson, 1996.
Gaudin, Marc-Antoine, “Sur le papier leptographique,” in La
Lumière, August 30, 1866.
Garófano Sánchez, Rafael (ed.), La Andalucía del Siglo XIX
en las fotografías de J. Laurent y Cía. (With texts by Ra-
fael Garófano Sánchez, Ramón Montes Ruiz, Javier Piñar
Samos, Carlos Teixidor Cadenas, Juan Antonio Fernández
Rivero, Miguel Ángel Yáñez Polo, Marta López Beriso, and
Concha Herranz Rodríguez.) Almería and Sevilla: Junta de
Andalucía, Consejería de Cultura and Centro Andaluz de
Fotografía, 1999.LE BLONDEL, ALPHONSE (1814–1875)
Alphonse-Bon Le Blondel, also Leblondel, (both spell-
ings existed until 1862)—was born in Normandy on
April 19, 1814. He fi rst trained as a painter but soon
turned to photography along with two of his broth-
ers—Alexandre and Théodore (both born in 1822). He
learnt the trade in 1840–1841, most probably among
a circle of daguerreotypists prevalent in Paris’s Palais
Royal where he used to sell photographic equipment.
As early as 1842 he made various forays as an itin-
erant photographer with Alexandre into the North of
France (Lille, Douai, Arras), thus playing an important
role in the circulation of daguerreotypes among the
general public. In 1845 he founded one of the fi rst pro-
fessional studios in Lille. He rapidly caught the attention
of Lille’s notables by his exemplary technical expertise
and an aggressive commercial strategy (cheaper prices,
advertisement in the local press, and exhibitions in
shops). Indeed, he managed to compel recognition for
10 years as he found no serious competitor in Lille.
From 1855, the development of the “Le Blondel
Brothers” studio, of which Théodore was now a part-
ner, expanded both on a commercial level as well as in
terms of recognition among professional photographers.
His success and profi tability enabled him to persue his
trade until 1892.
Le Blondel was one of the fi rst professional da-
guerreotypists. He also experimented with paper
photography as early as 1845 and marketed so-called
‘advanced’ calotypes at the beginning of September- When studying Lille, one cannot forget to mention
Louis-Désiré Blanquart-Évrard who communicated the
fi rst results of his research work on the improvement
of calotypes to the Academy of Science in Paris on
September 28, 1846, the very process being unveiled in