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to reproduce the same results. Carl August Steinheil,
the Munich-based physicist and his colleague Franz
von Kobell were amongst the academics who were
interested in what Daguerre invented. It virtually took
them only days to fi nd a method of keeping light on
paper; Steinheil constructed a small metal camera with
a self-calculated lens and Kobell found a comparatively
sensitive chlor-bromide process which produced nega-
tive images; these were reproduced for positive results.
On Feb., 1, 1839, they published the fi rst notice on their
fi ndings, and when Talbot released his own invention in
March 1839, the two felt the obligation to surpass him
by producing a number of actual images. Both presented
their results—which were of photographs from Munich,
reproductions of graphic arts, and images of smaller
objects—to the Bavarian Academy of Science on July
3, 1839 with much acclaim. Their images were small,
mostly 4 cm in diameter, but clear and sharp. Both did
not think of their invention as more than a scientifi c
experiment and did not develop their ideas further.
While Steinheil stuck to photographic optics, Franz
von Kobell left this fi eld completely and concentrated
on his two careers as mineralogist and as a playwright.
His “Brandner Caspar“ is still on the playlist of every
Bavarian folk theatre.
Franz von Kobell was born on July 19, 1803 in
Munich as the grandson of the painter and copper
etcher Ferdinand von Kobell. He studied mineralogy
in Landshut and started his professional career in the
mineralogical state collection of Bavaria in 1823. In
1827 he was honoured as a member at the Bavarian
Academy of Science. In 1834 he became professor of
mineralogy at the Munich university, and in 1849 he
was made director of the named state collection. His
main concerns were of practical questions of crystal-
lography and anorganic chemistry. Besides his coop-
eration with Carl August Steinheil in the invention of
photography he is named for a “stauroscope“ which
he patented in 1855. From 1839 on, Franz von Kobell
published numerous books as an author in both Bavar-
ian and Palatinate dialect as well as in the standard
language. Prior to his death on Nov.11, 1882, in Munich
he was honoured with knighthood. In 1896 there was a
memorial dedicated to him. His daughter Luise, then a
well-known author, wrote a comprehensive biography
on him and his life’s work.
Rolf Sachsse
VON LENBACH, FRANZ (1836–1904)
Franz Lenbach was born on Dec. 13, 1836 in the vil-
lage of Schrobenhausen in Bavaria. Following short
studies at the Augsburg polytechnic school he became
a student of Karl von Piloty in 1857 for a short time,
taught painting at Weimar in 1860, and began travel-
ling to Italy and France for several years. From 1868
he devoted himself exclusively to portraiture. Within
a short time, Lenbach had introduced photography as
an aid to his work. There were a number of photog-
raphers working for him, most notably Karl Hahn.
Lenbach gained enormous fame for his portraits of
Otto von Bismarck for which he had more than 120
photographs made of the German chancellor; the result
were more than 80 paintings. The use of photography
in Lenbach’s painting processes was threefold: fi rst
he had the heads of the photographs enlarged to copy
them. Second he had slides made from the images
which were then projected onto the canvas. And third,
he used the Parisien method of “photo-peinture“, a
sensitively covered canvas with a faint images of the
portraited over which he painted his picture. He be-
lieved in photography as an aid in the quick delivery
of painting commissions. Only within the last two
years of his life did he take photographs himself. He
died in Munich on May 6, 1904.
Rolf SachsseVON STEINHEIL, CARL AUGUST
(1801–1870) AND HUGO ADOLF
(1832–1893)
Astronomers and lens and camera manufacturers
Born in Rappoltsweiler, Alsace, Carl August Steinheil
studied science and astronomy, obtaining a doctor-
ate from Konigsberg University in 1825. In 1832 he
became professor of mathematics and physics at Mu-
nich. In March 1839, after William Henry Fox Talbot
had sent a copy of his paper, ‘Some account of the art
of Photogenic Drawing,’ to the Bavarian Royal Acad-
emy of Sciences, Steinheil, together with a colleague,
Franz von Kobell, conducted their own experiments in
photography. Steineil designed a cylindrical camera,
made from cardboard and resembling a telescope which
produced circular negatives on paper sensitised with
silver chloride solution. He later went on to make the
fi rst daguerreotypes in Germany.
Steinheil’s son, Hugo Adolph, studied optics and
astronomy in Munich and Augsburg. In 1854, father and
son founded the Steinheil Optical Institute in Munich.
Adolph designed a number of innovative lenses, includ-
ing the Periskop in 1865 and the Aplanat the following
year. In 1866 he bought out his father’s interest in the
Institute, which then became C. A. Steinheil Sohne,
and he carried on the work of the Institute following his
father’s death in 1870. He continued to design lenses,
writing an infl uential book on lens design in 1891, two
years before his death.
Colin Harding