936
MONPILLARD, FERNAND 1865–1937
French photomicrographer
Fernand Monpillard quickly acquired a reputation as
an exceptional photomicrographer. His “Laboratory of
Microphotography” was located at 22, Saint-Marcel
boulevard in Paris, not far from the national Museum
of natural history. He collaborated with many natural-
ists, biologists, and mineralogists whose articles were
often illustrated with his work. At the end of 1870,
photography acheived a scientifi c quality that Monpil-
lard never failed meet. Becoming a member of Société
française de photographie (SFP) in 1892, he frequently
shared his research on plates with orthochromatic
emulsion, which caused the indirect reproduction of
colors or trichromatic synthesis. With the development
of the histology and microbiology, the microscopic
observations required color and Monpillard worked to
obtain images that would further the succes of scientifi c
investigations.
If he worked to integrate photomicrography into the
experimental protocol, he also contributed to the his-
tory of color photography. Auguste and Louis Lumière
profi ted from his research on coloured screens as they
used them for their autochrome plates. From 1908 to
1932, during the evening he gave projection shows of
his autochrome plates there that were used for scientifi c
and geographical applications at the SFP. Monpillard
published his fi rst treatise of photomicrography in 1899
(Microphotography, Paris, Gauthier-Villars) according
to his technical courses given t the SFP, and then another
in 1926 (Macrophotography and microphotography,
Paris, Gaston Doin and Co). He was also the director of
the luxurious review La Photographie Française from
1901 to 1905.
Carole Troufléau
MONTFORT, BENITO DE
(active 1850s)
French aristocrat and benefactor
Writing in the journal The Chemist in February 1852,
in an article entitled ‘Photography in France’, Roger
Fenton described his visit to the Paris home, at 15
Rue de l’Arcade, of Colonel Benito de Montfort, son
of Baron de Montfort, and the founder of the Société
heliographique, the world’s fi rst photographic society.
The society’s rooms were in de Montfort’s house in one
of Paris’s most desirable and elegant neighborhoods
near the Bourse.
An entire suite of apartments, consisting of four or fi ve
rooms, at the top of the house, of course, and opening
on to an extensive terrace, with an excellent light, is de-
voted to the purposes of the society. One room is entirelyoccupied, walls, drawers and cupboards, with choice
specimens of the art, mostly in metal; another is fi tted up
with a laboratory, one corner of which is an enclosure
surrounded with yellow curtains, to exclude the light. In
fact there is every requisite facility, both for receiving the
amateurs in a suitable locale, and for their trying experi-
mentally, any new development of the science.
Such facilities attested to Montfort’s enthusiasm
for the new society which had been set up in 1851 as
a meeting point for a number of eminent scholars and
men of science, who were interested in the new art
of photography. Despite Fenton’s comment that most
of the images he saw were daguerreotypes, the forty
founding members included many who were produc-
ing work of the highest quality with the several nega-
tive/positive processes of the time—including Baron
Gros, Baldus, le Secq, Mestral, le Gray, Lerebours and
Vicomte Vigier.
Fenton would later use his knowledge of the French
organization as one of the triggers for the foundation of
the Photographic Society of London in 1853. So, indeed,
would Antoine Claudet, now accepted as the probable
author of a handwritten proposal for the formation of
the London Society, now in the collection of the national
media Museum, Bradford. In that document, the pro-
posal that the new society should have its own rooms
(in Claudet’s premises) describes a layout remarkably
similar to the suite of rooms Montfort had made avail-
able to the Société heliographique.
Many of Benito de Montfort’s ideas for the Société
heliographique were far-sighted and inspirational. The
organisation would collect exemplary works, would
publish an Album of the fi nest paper photography, and
would publish a journal—la Lumière initially edited by
F A Renard, then by the Jesuit Abbé François Moigno
and later by Ernest Lacan—in which all the latest ad-
vances and ideas were circulated to members, and which
was available on subscription to non-members. The
editorial offi ces of la Lumière were also in Montfort’s
house. Interestingly, Abbé Moigno went on to edit
Cosmos, also founded by Montfort in 1852, initially as
a scientifi c journal, but later with considerable interests
in photography as well.
The fi rst Album was produced in spring of 1851, the
cost of binding it being met by Montfort—described by
le Gray as Comte de Montfort—out of his own pocket.
While la Lumière prospered and continued in regular
publication until 1867, the Société heliographique
ceased to function after only two years, to be replaced
in 1854 by the Société française de photographie, which
published its own journal, the Bulletin.
Two further albums were produced in 1852 and 1853,
and despite the society’s rules stating that in the event of
it being wound up, the albums were to be given to the
Bibliothèque nationale (then the Bibliothèque royale)