1394
His prodigious publishing activity ensured that Tis-
sandier was well known to his contemporaries in France
and abroad. During his life he was included in national
dictionaries of biography. Few authors in the twentieth
century have referred to his work, and most only in
passing and by reference to aeronautics.
Catherine De Lorenzo
Biographical
Gaston Tissandier was born in Paris on 20 November
1843, the second son of Paul Emmanuel Tissandier and
Caroline Agathe Decan de Chatouville. Interestingly
enough, all contemporary accounts give Tissandier’s
birth date as 21 November 1843, but the copy birth
certifi cate at the Service des Archives départementales,
Paris, clearly states his birth as 20 November 1843.
The original birth certifi cate was destroyed during the
Siege of Paris in 1871 when the Hôtel de Ville was set
alight. Following his studies at the Lycée Bonaparte, he
worked as a chemist at the laboratory of the Conserva-
toire des Arts et Métiers, before being named director
of the Laboratory of Tests and Chemical Analysis of the
Union Nationale in 1864. He published more than two
dozen books, jointly authored nine more, presented more
than ten major papers to learned societies, and wrote
innumerable articles, especially on hot-air ballooning
and popular science. He was the founding editor of the
illustrated popular science journal, La Nature, His death
certifi cate notes he was predeceased by his wife, Louise
Anne Arbouin, and his brother noted that he had two
children. Tissandier died 30 August 1899 in Paris.
See also: Nadar, Paul.
Further Reading
Tissandier’s writings on photography include:
Les Merveilles de la photographie, Paris: Hachette, 1874, [later
La Photographie, 3rd ed., Paris: L. Hachette et Cie, 1882,
and translated as A history and handbook of photography,
edited by J. Thomson, London: Sampson Low, Marston, Low
& Searle, 1876].
Les récréations scientifi ques, ou, L’enseignement par les jeux, 2e
éd. entièrement refondue, Paris: G. Masson, 1881 [Popular
scientifi c recreations, in natural philosophy, astronomy, geol-
ogy, chemistry, etc., etc., etc. Translated and enlarged from
‘Les recreations scientifi ques,’ of Gaston Tissandier; New
York: Ward, Lock, 1885].
La Photographie en ballon, par Gaston Tissandier. Avec une
epreuve photoglyptique du cliché obtenu par MM. Gaston
Tissandier et Jacques Ducom, à 600 mètres au-dessus de l’ile
Saint-Louis, à Paris... Paris: Gauthier-Villars, 1886.
Contemporary biographies include entries in:
Dictionnaire générale de biographie contemporaine, etc. edited
by Adolphe Bitard, Paris, 1878.
Dictionnaire générale de biographie contemporaine, etc., edited
by Adolphe Bitard, 3rd ed. Paris, 1887.
Biographie nationale des contemporaines: rédigée par une
société de gens de lettres, edited by Ernest Glaeser, Paris,
1878.
Dictionnaire universel illustré biographique et bibliographique
de la France contemporaine, edited by Jules Lermina, Paris
1884.
R. Le Cholleux, (ed.) [pseud. of Brissy, René Alphonse] ‘Gaston
Tissandier,’ La France Biographique: Galerie des Notabilités
contemporaines. Paris: France Biographique, 1891.
R. Le Choleux [sic], ‘Gaston Tissandier, biographie,’ Delivered
at a general meeting of the Société d’encouragement, 9 June
1893], Paris: Imprimerie générale Lahure, 1894.
R. Le Cholleux, ‘Gaston Tissandier,’ Revue biographique des no-
tabilities françaises contemporaines, 3 vols. Paris: Rédaction
et administration, 1896–1898.
Dictionnaire universel des Contemporains contenant toutes les
personnes notables de la France et des pays étrangers, edited
by G. Vapereau, Paris: Librairie Hachette et Co. 1893.
Henri de Parville, ‘Gaston Tissandier,’ La Nature, No. 1372, 9
Sept. 1899, 225–7.
Albert Tissandier, ‘Gaston Tissandier: Sa vie intime,’ La Nature,
No. 1373, 16 Sept. 1899, 248–50. For more recent accounts
see Dictionnaire des inventeurs français, edited by Marie
Fernande Alphandéry, Paris: Éditions Seghers, 1963.
Index Biographique Français, 2nd edition, compiled and revised
by Tommaso Nappo, 7 vols. München: K.G. Saur, 1998.
Aaron Scharf, Art and Photography, rev. ed., Harmondsworth,
Pelican, 1974.
James R. Ryan, Picturing Empire: Photography and the Visuali-
sation of the British Empire, Chicago: University of Chicago
Press, 1997.TONING
Armand-Hippolyte-Louis Fizeau—the French physicist
best known for being the fi rst to develop a reliable meth-
od of calculating the speed of light—was responsible, in
August 1840, for proposing some signifi cant advances
in the daguerreotype process. The most enduring of
these was the use of gold chloride as a fi nal chemical
treatment after fi xing—most recipes employed dilute
solutions of both ‘hyposulphite of soda’ and ‘chloride
of gold’ mixed just before use. This had several effects,
marginally raising the contrast of a daguerreotype,
slightly intensifying the image, and most signifi cantly,
increasing the stability and permanence of the delicate
image. It also slightly changed its color, imparting a
warm tinge to the darker areas of the image.
Despite the fact that this process changed the color of
the daguerreotype image, it was invariably described in
contemporary journals not as ‘toning’ but as ‘fi xing’ or
‘gilding.’ The term ‘toning’ would not come into general
use until well into the ascendancy of the paper albumen
print. Gold chloride remained the basic building-block
of the majority of toners throughout the remainder of
the 19th century.
Writing on the subject in The Dictionary of Pho-
tography in 1897, Edward John Wall noted that “If a
silver print is placed directly into the fi xing bath, an