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such hand tinted masterpieces. Whilst working in the
Regents Street Studio, Claudet employed Andre Leon
Larue, known as Mansion as his colourist. Mansion was
a miniaturist painter born in 1785, the son of Jacque
Larue, a portrait painter. Mansion wrote at least two
books on miniaturist painting. The second of which was
‘The Principles and Practice of Harmonious Colouring
in Oil, Water and Photographic Colours on Paper, Glass
and Silver Plate.’
Critics were very impressed by Mansion’s skill and in
the Art Union 1845,1st June, p. 171, it was written that:
‘...no human had ever obtained such brilliant effects as
these which result from the combined labours of nature
and art.’Mansion had his own technique of colouring plates,
using a palette made up of fi fteen colours which he had
learned as a miniaturist. Hand tinting kits were eventu-
ally on sale such as the Newman kit dated 1850 which
had thirty-six colours.
A beautiful example of a tinted photograph taken by
A. Claudet and tinted by Mansion was the portrait of Mrs
Andrew Pritchard 1847, Victoria and Albert Museum,
London. The subtle beige of Mrs. Pritchard’s dress is
complemented by the painted landscape backdrop and
her jewellery is highlighted in gold.
Claudet was aware that it would never be possible
to produce daguerreotypes in natural colours. Despite
this, he continued to carry out research into the solar
spectrum. At the Great Exhibition in the Crystal Palace
in 1851, Claudet exhibited a daguerreotype showing the
spectrum and illustrated the different refrangible rays.
Claudet delivered a paper discussing the sensitivity of
the photographic surface to colour media to the Royal
Society but never had the opportunity to follow this
concept through to its full conclusion.
It was not until 1861 that James Clark Maxwell was
the fi rst to demonstrate the additive colour process.
He superimposed three photos through red green and
blue fi lters, then projected the original in full colour. In
1869 Louis Ducos du Hauron discussed the possibili-
ties of natural colour in photography in his book Les
Couleurs en Photographie Solution du Probleme. In
1895 Professor John Joly of Dublin presented the fi rst
additive screen plate colour process and fi nally, in 1904
Auguste and Louis Lumière patented the autochrome
process, which was to dominate the world of photogra-
phy for the next thirty years and made orthochromatic
photography possible.
Laura ClaudetBiography
In 1839 the daguerreotype was presented by Daguerre.
There was disappointment that daguerreotype images
were not in colour. Richard Beard patented the colour
tinting process in 1842. Critics such as Francois Arago
were against the hand tinting of daguerreotypes. Many
of the colourists were former miniaturist painters.
The hand tinting process involved coating the plate
with gum arabic, then brushing on powdered pigment
with a very fi ne brush. Andre Leon Larue, known asCOLOURING BY HAND
Elliott, Joseph John. Hotel de Ville, Paris.
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