296
pupil of the School of mining engineering in Paris, be-
tween 1842 and 1846, the year he received his diploma.
In addition it is likely that Choiselat had knowledge in
chemistry. The two men undertook research in the fi eld
of alchemy, on the transformation of metals into gold. It
is not impossible that the two men came to photography
by the means of alchemy.
The various communications, which they addressed
to the Academy of Science in the fi rst half of the 1840s,
remains the principal source used to reconstruct their
direction and work. March 16, 1840, Arago presented
in front of the Academy two daguerreotypes; Arago
would have praised them as admirable images taken by
Choiselat. On this date, it would seem that the latter had
taken some tests in the fi eld of the daguerreotype with
the chemist Paul Pretsch and later started his collabo-
ration with Ratel. According to Choiselat these images
were fi xed by means of a particular process.
In this period, following the contest launched by the
Société d’encouragement à l’industrie nationale, the two
men endeavored to solve various technical problems pre-
venting the industrial and commercial rise of daguerreo-
type. In 1841 they conducted engravings according to the
process recommended by Fizeau. Their works, submitted
at the end of 1842 to the Société d’encouragement pour
l’industrie, won them a medal and a prize the following
year. The fi rst known plates of the views of the beaches
of Tréport remain from this period.
In 1843, the two men developed an accelerating liquid
of bromoforme, combining bromine with hydrogen, car-
bon and other substances similar to the alcohol which,
according to their statements, created images “in less
than two seconds.” They presented three papers on this
subject in front of the Academy of Science and ensured
the diffusion of their invention by the means of Soleil
et Chevalier.
The same year, these two men presented plates at
the l’Exposition des Produits de l’Industrie de Paris,
even if their names did not appear among the offi cial
exhibitors. The essentials of their work were published
in the summer as an anonymous work, Essai de théorie
daguerrienne et résultats pratiques par un professeur
de Sciences, and Charles Chevalier included one their
communications with the Academy of Science in its
Mélanges photographiques.
The following year, in the summer and the beginning
of the autumn 1845, Choiselat accompanied Ratel on a
voyage at the end of their completed studies, along with
two of their colleagues on behalf of the School of the
Mines. Their tour, in the form of loop, led them from
Auvergne to the Cantal, through the Alps (Grenoble,
Gap), and to the South and the western south of France
(Toulon, Marseilles, Nimes, Arles, Montpellier, Sète).
It was during the three and a half months of this voy-
age that they took the majority of their pictures now
known as views of the valley, (sight of the town of Die,
panorama in 3 plates July 21, 1845) and of the Alps,
as well as images of the various ports (Marseilles,
Sète and Toulon (panorama in fi ve plates of the roads
of September 15, 1845) and monuments of Provence
(arenas of Nimes, amphitheatre of Arles, cathedral of
Rodez). The collection manifests a predilection for theChoiselat, Marie-Charles-Isidore;
Stanislas Ratel. The Pavillon de Flore
and the Tuileries Gardens.
The Metropolitan Museum of Art,
Gilman Collection, Purchase, The
Horace W. Goldsmith Foundation
Gift, 2005 (2005.100.29) Image © The
Metropolitan Museum of Art.