168
Blanquart-Évrard’s fi rst publication bore the pro-
grammatic title Album photographique de l’artiste et de
l’amateur. It was conceived as “a frame within which all
the applications of the new discovery would gather,” thus
echoing the purpose of Talbot’s Pencil of Nature. While
many of the 36 plates remain unidentifi ed, it comprised
photographs by Baron Alexis De la Grange, Alphonse
de Brébisson, Maxime du Camp, and Charles Marville.
Architectural views (taken in France, Italy, Belgium,
India, and Jerusalem) mingled with a Lebanese land-
scape by Ernest Benecke and reproductions of artworks.
Art reproductions would be the subject of the second
album, L’art contemporain, reproducing twelve paint-
ings exhibited at the Salon in 1853, photographed by
Hippolyte Bayard and F.A. Renard. In total, Blanquard-
Évrard published 24 albums, of which Isabelle Jammes
established a 555 entries catalogue raisonné (see “fur-
ther reading”). They included masterpieces by Charles
Marville—Blanquart-Évrard’s principal photographer
and the author of the most important monographs he
published, Les Bords du Rhin (1853, 28 plates)—Henri-
Victor Régnault, Henry Le Secq, Thomas Sutton, and
Louis-Rémy Robert. It is most likely that some of the
unsigned plates can be credited to Blanquart-Évrard
himself (especially the three plates of Paysages de Flan-
dres, 1853, according to Jammes); unfortunately, little
information exists on his own photographic practice.
The general publishing policy remained more or less the
same as set by the Album photographique de l’artiste et
de l’amateur (architectural views and reproductions of
works of art, with some landscapes), with the exception
of few genre scenes.
As anticipated, other publishers commissioned Blan-
quart-Évrard for the printing of negatives they wished
to publish. This was especially the case with Gide &
Baudry, a powerful publishing company specialized in
travel accounts, archaeology, and scientifi c literature.
Blanquart-Évrad executed the prints for two land-
mark photographic books they published, Du Camp’s
Egypte, Nubie, Palestine et Syrie (1852, 125 plates)
and Auguste Salzman’s Jerusalem (1856, 174 plates).
Du Camp’s album was a success, and about 200 copies
were manufactured. A few of his photographs were also
included in Blanquart-Évrard’s own publications. Blan-
quart-Évrard also printed John B. Greene photographs
on Egypt, gathered in Le Nil, a self-published album
(1854, 94 plates).
Though groundbreaking and well planned, Blan-
quart-Évrard’s venture was destined to fail. He under-
estimated the operating costs, and the photographic
prints remained too expensive to produce, thus to sell.
Instead of the few cents estimated in the Spring of 1851,
he would ask 6 francs for the fi rst 16x20 cm print, with
the next from the same negative priced at 2 francs each.
Consequently, Album photographique de l’artiste et
de l’amateur plates (available individually, which was
the case for all his publications) sold for 6 francs each.
Moreover, even if Blanquart-Évrard’s process was one
of the best, salt paper prints were still not considered
to be stable enough. The public was not ready to pay
such prices for prints that might fade; a lithograph
was much cheaper. Blanquart-Évrard cut prices down
about 50% in 1854, but it was too late. The imprimerie
photographique closed in 1855. By this time, other pub-
lishers like Goupil had stopped publishing photographs
(mostly printed by H. de Fonteny, Blanquart-Évrard’s
most serious competitor)—though they would resume
this activity in 1858, focusing on their own niche, repro-
duction of artworks, and using albumen prints, which
were more stable than salt paper prints. In September
1855, Blanquart-Évrard formed a partnership with the
English photographer Thomas Sutton. They opened the
Establishment for Permanent Positive Printing in Jersey.
It closed in 1857.
A major fi gure of the development of photography
in the golden decade of the 1850’s, Blanquart-Évrard
devoted the rest of his life to new research (including
color photography). In 1863, he published an important
treatise, Intervention de l’art dans la photographie, in
which he described the negative as raw material beg-
ging to be interpreted by the photographer, modulating
shadows and highlights, in order to obtain a relevant and
valid artwork. Such a conception predated the pictorial-
ist aesthetic. But Blanquart-Évrard’s main achievement
after the Loos-lès-Lille factory closed was his major
book, La photographie, ses origines, ses progrès, ses
transformations (1869), in which he gave an accurate
account of the fi rst three decades of photography. Ironi-
cally, his book contained original silver prints, at a time
when photo publishing as he had envisioned it was
defi nitively threatened by the advent of photomechani-
cal processes.
Pierre-Lin ReniéSee Also: Archaeology; Architecture; France;
Permanency; Photographic publishers; Photography
of paintings; Photography and reproduction;
Talbot, William Henry Fox; Daguerre, Louis-Jacques-
Mandé; Société Française de Photographie; Piot,
Eugène; Wey, Francis; De la Grange, Baron Alexis;
de Brébisson, Louis-Alphonse; Du Camp, Maxime;
Marville, Charles; Benecke, Ernest;
Bayard, Hippolyte; Régnault, Henri-Victor;
Le Secq, Henri; Sutton, Thomas; and Robert, Louis-
Rémy; Salzman, Auguste; Greene, John; and Goupil
& Cie.Further Reading
Allain, Alexandre, “Blanquart-Évrard et la consécration de la Vi-
erge,” Etudes photographiques, no. 9, May 2001, 149–152