334
Further Reading
Garner, Phillipe, ‘William Constable, Brighton’s First Photog-
rapher,’ History of Photography, Vol. 15, No. 3, 1991, pp
236–240.
CONSTANT, EUGÈNE (1848–1855)
French Photographer
Eugène Constant was a brilliant and innovative French
photographer who produced views of Rome that are
unique, particularly with regard to their manufacture.
As early as 1848 Eugène Constant sent to Paris some
excellent positives printed from albumen negatives
taken by him personally in Rome. Yet he still remains
a mystery. He used the calotype, then became one of
the fi rst in Rome, if not the fi rst, to use the new albu-
men on glass negative. He lived Rome 1848–1855,
then disappeared. He exhibited Society of Arts, London
1852, Paris 1857.
No one of the period seems to have produced so
consistently the same texture, the precise quality of the
printed mark, not simply with regard to tone, often a soft
pink, but in relation to the specifi c granular construc-
tion of the printed silver solution, which resembled an
etching as distinct from the soft, often blurred tones that
were characteristic of the early albumen experiments.
As such Constant was able to bring out the quality of
the Roman ruin majestically, such as his ‘Temple of
Castor, Rome, from the West’ or ‘The Arch of Titus,’
or ‘The Arch of Septimus Severus.’ These prints were
probably made from albumen glass negatives as dis-
tinct from wet collodion. They are comparable with
some early prints by the Scottish photographer Robert
Macpherson who was to eventually use the rarely used
collodio-albumen dry plate negative, invented 1855.
He had commenced with the albumen negative in
- Constant’s work displays perfect composition,
a delicacy; small, petite, exquisitely refi ned—all pho-
tographs display some aspects of the photographer’s
character. They are decidedly French. He controls the
light perfectly, as if it were paint; the light alternating
precisely with the shadows.
Eugène Constant was part of the foreigners art
scene in Rome that congregated round the Caffè Greco
where many visitors also came to talk to the artists and
obtain invitations to visit their studios. The French
would appear to have formed the fi rst signifi cant group
of photographers: along with Constant were Jean-
François-Charles André (1813–83), known as Count
Frédéric Flachéron, sculptor, lived Rome 1839-1867,
originally as a Prix de Rome at the French Academy.
He commenced with the calotype in 1847, Prince
Giron des Anglonnes, lived Rome 1850–52, perhaps
also Alfred-Nicolas Normand (1822–1909), a Prix
de Rome architect arrived 1847 took up the calotype,
producing prints dated 1850–52, and Louis-Alphonse
Davanne (1824–1912). It is probable that the interest
in photography began as a gentleman’s pursuit, a side
show originally to painting, during the daguerreotype
and calotype processes, and although they produced
excellent work, mostly using Louis-Désiré Blanquart-
Evrard’s (1802–72) improved calotype formula and
his new albumen paper, and then the albumen on glass
negative, they did not become successful commercial
exponents.
Some did try to make photography pay, just as in
painting, but how much of a business is still diffi cult
to tell. Count Flachéron, as Flachéron-Hayard, using
his married name, attempted to run a business and also
sold work by Robert Macpherson (c. 1856), Eugène
Constant sold his prints, mounted on card, inscribed
with an embossed stamp of ‘Eugene Constant,’ and on
the mount the monogram EC, at the shop of Edouard
Mauche, Via del Corso 174, along with other French
photographers.
One reason for the fading of such as Constant’s
brilliance was the political and economic blight in the
1840s to 1870 which drove the collectors from Rome.
The artists’ studios gradually began to disappear. They
no longer came for several years at a time; the migra-
tion to Paris had begun. In later years the abandoned
artists’ studios made excellent photographic studios
and darkrooms for the thriving trade that catered, post-
1870, for a different kind of tourist. All were never to
be heard of again in their time. The new formula for
success in the mass market was to be the denial of the
photographer as personality; companies could now
employ many photographers and few would notice
the difference between one photographer’s product
and another.
Alistair Crawford
See Also: Albumen Print; MacPherson, Robert;
Calotype and Talbotype; Davanne, Louis-Alphonse;
and Blanquart-Evrard, Louis-Désiré.Further Reading
Becchetti, Piero, La fotografi a a Roma dalle origini al 1915,
Editore Colombo, Rome, 1983.
——, Giacomo Caneva e la scuola fotografi ca romana (1847–
1855), Regione Lazio 3, Editore Alinari, Florence, Rome,
1989.
Crawford, Alistair, ‘Robert MacPherson 1814–72, the foremost
photographer of Rome’ Papers of the British School at Rome,
Volume LXVII, 1999, 353–403.CONSTANTINOU, DIMITRIOS
(active 1850s–1870s)
Dimitrios Constantinou was known as the second pro-