1171
chois were published in the Photographic and Fine Art
Journal, along with a note celebrating their work. De-
spite this praise, it was diffi cult for the two to compete
with the successful daguerrian studios that dominated
New York’s photographic market. Prevost’s partnership
with Duchochois only lasted until 1855, after which
he went to work for Charles Fredericks, another pho-
tographer who was expanding from daguereotypes to
include paper photographs made from wet collodion
glass plate negatives. While working for Fredericks,
Prevost listed himself in city directories as a chemist,
suggesting that he mixed chemicals or printed photo-
graphs for Fredericks.
In 1857, Prevost gave up on earning his living through
photography. His wife Louise had been assisting her aunt
at her school near Madison Square, Madame Chegaray’s
Institute for Young Ladies. Victor Prevost joined the fac-
ulty as a teacher of drawing, painting, and physics. He
continued to work as an educator until his death.
Despite having abandoned photography as a ca-
reer, Prevost continued to photograph the continually
changing face of New York City. In the fall of 1862, he
photographed and compiled an album of 35 views in
Central Park, which was still undergoing construction.
These albumen prints were made from glass negatives.
In the late 1870s, he completed an album of eighteen
photographs of the American Museum of Natural His-
tory. The photographs show the exterior of the building,
completed in 1877, and several of its collections.
Prevost died in New York in April 1881. He was bur-
ied in Calvary Cemetery in Brooklyn. He was largely
forgotten after his death, until a cache of his negatives
was discovered in 1901, and he was thereafter celebrated
as the creator of the fi rst paper photographs of New
York City.
Collections of Prevost’s waxed paper negatives and/
or surviving salt and albumen prints are held by the fol-
lowing institutions in the United States: George Eastman
House, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Museum of the
City of New York, New-York Historical Society, New
York Public Library, and Smithsonian Institution.
Jenny Gotwals
Biography
Charles Henry Victor Prevost was born in 1820 in La
Rochelle, France. As a young man he studied art in Paris
under Paul Delaroche. Prevost worked as a lithographer,
and exhibited his work in the Paris Salons of 1845 and
- In 1849, Prevost was living in New York and was
married to Louise Berault. Their son Emmanuel Emile
was born in 1850. In 1853, Prevost went to France,
where he learned Gustave Le Gray’s new method for
creating calotypes. From 1853–1855 Prevost had a
partnership with P.C. Duchochois, and began taking
paper photographs of New York City urban sights, and
rural areas in upper Manhattan and New Jersey. Prevost
exhibited his calotypes at the New York Exhibition of
the Industry of All Nations at the Crystal Palace in 1854.
From 1855–1856, Prevost worked for photographer
Charles D. Fredericks. In 1857 Prevost began working
as a teacher, and continued to work as an educator and
principal until his death. Prevost died in New York in
April 1881.
See also: Calotype and Talbotype, Fredericks, Charles
Deforest; Great Exhibition, New York (1853–54); Le
Gray, Gustave; and Waxed Paper Negative Processes.Further Reading
Duncan, R. Bruce, “I, Victor Prevost –” in Graphic Antiquarian,
vol. 4, no. 1, 1976, 5–11.
Jammes, Andre, and Eugenia Parry Janis, The Art of French Calo-
type, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1983.
Newhall, Beaumont, “Victor Prevost, Early New York Photogra-
pher.” Image, vol. 3, no. 1 (1954): 3–5.
Rosenheim, Jeff L. “ ‘A Palace for the Sun’: Early Photography
in New York City.” In Art and the Empire City, New York,
1825–1861, edited by Catherine Hoover Voorsanger, and
John K. Howat, New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art,
2000 (exhibition catalog).
Scandlin, W.I., Victor Prevost, Photographer, Artist, Chemist:
A New Chapter in the Early History of Photography in this
Country, New York: Evening Post Job Print, 1901.
Van Gulick, Ellouise, Victor Prevost, Photographer of New York,
Thesis (M.A.), Albuquerque, New Mexico: University of New
Mexico, 1982.PRICE, WILLIAM LAKE (1810–1896)
English photographer
Like many early photographers, William Lake Price
originally trained as a painter, turning to photography
c. 1854. Before that date, his landscape and architec-
tural watercolours had been exhibited widely, including
several exhibitions at the Royal Academy in London,
and the Old Water Colour Society.
He joined the Photographic Society of London
shortly after its formation, and exhibited his work at
the Society’s Annual Exhibitions from 1855 until 1860.
His work was predominantly both genre and portraiture,
and his study ‘Don Quixote in his Study’ was widely
exhibited, and also chosen as one of the photogalva-
nographic plates for the fi rst series of Paul Pretsch’s
Photographic Art Treasures published in 1857. His
portraiture subjects included Prince Albert, Owen Jones,
and many of the leading Royal Academicians of his day,
including William Powell Frith, Clarkson Stanfi eld and
David Roberts.
Lake Price was a popular lecturer on many subjects
relating to photography, and his lectures were widely
published in photographic journals in both Britain and