195
with so much success at the 1855 Exposition Universelle
that he left to pursue photography full-time, eventually
opening a tourist photography fi rm. Like Braun, Aubry
was trained as an industrial designer. As he explained
in his Studies of Leaves (1864), his photographs were
meant to “facilitate the study of nature, I caught it in the
act, and I hereby offer to workers some models that may
increase our productivity in the industrial arts.”
Although most of his pioneering efforts occurred
during the 20th century, mention must be made of Ger-
man botanist, teacher, and sculptor Blossfeldt. Blossfl edt
began as an ironworker during the height of the German
equivalent of the Art Nouveau movement. In 1890, he
accompanied his professor to collect plant specimens for
the purpose of lecturing on design. Self-taught in pho-
tography, Blossfeldt photographed primarily foliage for
over thirty-fi ve years. After taking his fi rst photographs
in 1896, he later reproduced his lantern slides in two
books: Urformen der Kunst (Archetypes of Art, 1928)
and Wundergarten der Natur (The Wonder Garden of
Nature, 1932). Appearing against a background of ei-
ther light or dark gray, Blossfeldt’s studies emphasize
sculptural form and graphic qualities.
During the waning years of the 19th century, fl ow-
ers were used allegorically, in the manner of symbolist
painting, or for purely formal modernist arrangements.
Dreamy-eyed youths stared languidly into poppies in the
works of F. Holland Day and lilies fl oated in bowls—all
under the characteristic haze of the pictorial aesthetic.
The linear quality of Asian prints also infl uenced pho-
tography in their inclusion of botanical motifs. It would
not be until the 20th century, with photographers such
as Imogen Cunningham, that the solo fl ower, namely
the calla lilly, and its simple abstract quality would
come to the fore.
Leslie K. Brown
See Also: Talbot, William Henry Fox; Still Lifes;
Braun, Adolphe; Aubry, Charles Hippolyte;
Expositions Universelle, Paris (1854, 1855, 1867
etc.); Day, Fred Holland; Anna Atkins; Charles
Aubry; Books Illustrated with Photographs;
Adolphe Braun; Cyanotype; Eugène Colliau;
André Louis Ducos du Hauron; and William Henry
Fox Talbot.
Further Reading
Ewing, William A., Flora Photographica: Masterpieces of
Flower Photography from 1835 to the Present, New York:
Simon and Schuster, 1991.
Schaaf, Larry J., Sun Gardens: Victorian Photograms, New York:
Aperture, 1985.
Thomas, Ann, with essay by Marta Braun, Beauty of Another
Order: Photography in Science, New Haven: Yale University
Press in association with the National Gallery of Canada,
Ottawa, 1997.
Wilde, Ann and Jurgen, editors, with an introduction by Ulrike
Meyer Stump, Karl Blossfeldt: Working Collages, Cambridge:
MIT Press, 2001.BÖTTGER, GEORG (1821–1901)
German photographerGeorg Böttger was born in Hildburghausen, Thuringia
on 9 July 1821. He was fi rst a lithographer and en-
graver, before beginning as a portrait photographer in
Nuremberg and Erlangen in 1850. In 1852 he moved to
Munich, specialising in architectural images of monu-
ments erected by Ludwig I and Ludwig II in Munich
and Bavaria, and later teaching photography and selling
collodion dry plates and photographic equipment. In
1854 he participated in the Deutsche Industrieausstel-
lung [German Industrial Exhibition] in Munich. Named
photographer to the Bavarian royal family in 1872,
Böttger was well known for his landscape and city
views as well as his art reproductions. One of his most
famous works is a monumental 360-degree, 460-cm long
panorama of Munich taken in 1858 from the tower of
St Peter’s church. Lesser known, but important was his
documentation of railroad engineering and bridge build-
ing activity in Bavaria at the end of the 1860s. Much
of his photographic work resides in the Stadtmuseum
Munich and the Deutsche Bahn [German Railroad]
Museum Nuremberg.
Stefanie KlammBOURDIN, JULES ANDRÉ GABRIEL
(1832–1893)
French photographer and inventorJules Bourdin earned his place in photographic history
with what has subsequently been recognised as the
world’s fi rst ‘instant picture camera’. Bourdin was a
Parisian photographer who made little mark with his
images, but a signifi cant name for himself with his in-
novative camera designs.
The Dubroni No.1—the name is an anagram of
Bourdin’s own surname—which he invented and pat-
ented in 1864, was a novel camera designed for wet
collodion photography which permitted the processing
of the collodion plate to take place within the camera
body, thus freeing the travelling photographer from
the need to carry on location all the paraphernalia usu-
ally associated with wet plate operation in the fi eld. In
Britain, the smallest size Dubroni outfi t, complete with
an instruction book, could be purchased for £2. It was
one of a signifi cant number of camera designs which he
marketed from the early 1860s until into the late 1880s,
and by far the most important historically.