312
is constituted by reproduction of works of art. Intend-
ing to build his own “imaginary museum,” Chauffour
gathered about 350 reproductions (representing 63%
of his collection.) He bought photographs as well as
engravings or lithographs reproductions. Photography
was in this respect most of the time considered superior
to the traditional graphic arts for the copy of works of
art, because it was a diffi cult and delicate task. Some
photographers like Robert Bingham for contemporary
art and Adolphe Braun for old masters were the best in
this domain and Chauffour, looking for quality, sup-
plied to them. Thanks to the extraordinary fi delity to the
original and the rapidity of execution, photography was
attractive and stimulated appropriation instinct: one had
the work of art under their eyes, one could possess it.
With photographs of reproduction, Chauffour completed
his fac-simile collection, aiming to create for him and in
the spirit of the Schongauer Society, a true collection of
reference. Chauffour became very early conscious of the
importance of photography for art knowledge and diffu-
sion. In 1879, he bequeathed his photographic collection
to Colmar museum that he dedicated to art education.
The Dollfus-Ausset and Chauffour collections clearly
assume the capacity of both to approach photography
as a proper artistic medium, above all the only technical
curiosity or the documentary interest.
Another kind of collector, free from any consider-
ation, was the art amateur. Alfred Bruyas (1821–1877)
from Montpellier, a rich art collector of contemporary
paintings (Courbet, Delacroix, Millet, Ingres...), col-
lected photographs for his pleasure and his documenta-
tion. Travelling in Rome in 1848, he brought back six
daguerreotypes by Eugene Constant and three calotypes
by Flachéron that he included in the catalogue of his
collection edited in 1851. This catalogue also mentioned
an album reproducing his gallery counting 35 paintings
and drawings. Bruyas largely commented this album,
encouraging photographic progress notably for the re-
production of works of art which were for him synonym
to education, truth and modernity. But unhappily his
photographic collection disappeared. The Fabre museum
only preserves his photographic portraits by Disderi,
Mayer & Pierson, Cairol, d’Albenas and Baldus.
From 1870 and 1880, the progress of the photome-
chanical process gave the possibility of mass produc-
ing images of quality at low cost. Framed more or less
luxuriously, the images published by the fi rm Goupil
& Cie for instance were above all destined to decorate
the middle-class home walls or more modest classes.
It did exist folding screen-frames used to put photo-
graphs, one hangs on the wall a photography frame as
a painting, as well as family albums began to decorate
the living-room.
All these elements confi rm the importance of art pho-
tography and photographs collectors during the second
part of the 19th Century. They deserve to be taken into
account now, to go further in for a better knowledge
of history of collectionism and a fairly approach of
photography history.
Laure Boyer
See Also: Bibliothèque Nationale; Société Française
de Photographie; Calotype and Talbotype; Aguado de
las Marismas, Comte Olympe-Clemente-Alexandre-
Auguste and Vico; Le Gray Gustave; Silvy, Camille;
Napoleon III, Emperor; Victoria, Queen and
Albert, Prince Consort; Painters and Photography;
Pictorialism; Bisson, Louis-Auguste and Auguste-
Rosalie; Le Secq, Henri (Jean-Louis Henri Le Secq
des Tournelles); Flachéron, Count Frédéric A.; and
Goupil & Cie.Further Reading
Sylvie Aubenas, Des photographies pour l’empereur, Les albums
de Napoléon III, Paris, BNF, 2004.
Hélène Bocart, Les expositions de photographies sous le Second
Empire, PhD dissertation, Sorbonne University, Paris I, 2004,
vol. 1, 323.
Laure Boyer et Christian Kempf, “La photographie au musée,”
Histoire du musée d’Unterlinden et de ses collections de la
Révolution à la Première Guerre mondiale, Société Schon-
gauer, Colmar, 2003, 262–275.
F. Dimond, D. Everett, R. Taylor, Crow and Camera. The Eng-
lish Royal family and Photography, 1842-1910, Alinari,
Firenze.
Mark Haworth-Booth and Anne McCauley, The Museum and
the Photograph. Collecting photography at the Victoria and
Albert Museum, 1853–1900, Williamstown, Mass., Sterling
and Francine Clark Art Institute, 1998.
Nicole Garnier-Pelle, La photographie au XIXe siècle à Chan-
tilly, Arlys, 2001; Robert de Lasteyrie, “Des progrès de la
photographie,” Revue photographique, 5 juillet 1858; Une
image sur un mur, Images et décoration intérieure au XIXe
siècle, Bordeaux, Musée Goupil, 2005.COLLEN, HENRY (1800–1879)
Henry Collen was a painter of miniatures who later be-
came the fi rst professional calotypist. He trained under
Sir George Hayter and was a Royal Academy Silver
Medal winner in 1821. Collen became interested in
photography in 1841 and in August of that year obtained
a license from Talbot to practice calotype portraiture
commercially. He enjoyed some success although his
technical skills were limited and he complained of a
lack of support from Talbot. Despite the problems,
relations with Talbot remained cordial. When his stu-
dio closed in August 1844 he had produced around a
thousand portraits. Collen’s artistic training infl uenced
his photography. He criticised Talbot’s use of light and
backgrounds and extensively retouched his portraits.
Collen’s photographic interests extended beyond simple
portraiture. In 1840 he was involved in experiments to