384
DARLOT, ALPHONSE (1828–1895)
French inventor and merchant
Born on 3 September 1828 in Seignelay, France, Darlot
served his apprenticeship at the Paris optician’s of Noël
Lerebours and Secrétan where he obtained his Master-
ship aged 21 years.
Darlot joined the fi rm of Jean Theodor Jamin which
had been established in 1822 in 1855. On Jamin’s re-
tirement in 1860 he took over control of the business.
From 1860–1861 the fi rm’s lenses carried both names.
Darlot lenses were widely imported into the United
States and sold by Benjamin French & Co. M. Carey
Lea, the American photographic writer wrote: ‘Jamin’s
(now Darlot’s) view lenses are very good, and of ex-
traordinary cheapness. The amateur of small means who
wishes to take views cannot do better than begin with
one or two of them.’
Darlot’s most distinctive lens design was the Cône
Centraliser lens made by Jamin and Darlot from 1855.
It had a fl ared back section designed to prevent internal
refl ections. Darlot’s other distinctive design were lenses
with three swing-out stops. The fi rm made an extensive
range of lenses with most of the Petzval type, landscape
lenses and Rectilinears sold under the Hemisphérique
or Hemispherical names and they were widely fi tted to
cameras in Britain and the United States.
Darlot was also active selling cameras and other opti-
cal equipment. The fi rm was awarded a silver medal at
the 1867 Paris International Exhibition.
On his death on 5 October 1895 the factory was
acquired by L. Turillon who continued manufacturing
lenses under the Darlot name.
Michael Pritchard
DARWIN, CHARLES ROBERT
(1809–1882)
Charles Darwin was not a photographer himself, but his
publications had a lasting effect on how photographs are
used in scientifi c research. Darwin used photographs
in preparing at least four of his books: The Variation of
Animals and Plants under Domestication (1868), The
Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex (1871),
The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals
(1872), and The Formation of Vegetable Mould through
the Action of Worms (1883). In Variation, Darwin
published a wood engraving made from an anonymous
photograph of a domesticated Yorkshire pig; in the
second edition of Descent, he published another wood
engraving after a photograph of an orang-utan foetus
supplied by the German zoologist Hinrich Nitsche
(1845–1902). Darwin’s last book, Vegetable Mould,
contained several engravings after photographs of
earthworm castings, probably provided by George King
(1840–1909), Superintendent of the Calcutta Botanical
Gardens. However, it was with Expression that Darwin
made his most signifi cant contribution to photographic
illustration. In addition to wood engravings copied from
photographs, Expression was illustrated with seven
heliotype plates, each containing numerous separate
fi gures. The inclusion of ‘real’ photographs in a popular
scientifi c book was unprecedented.
Expression is the third in a trilogy of works that lay
out Darwin’s theories of evolution. The fi rst was the
legendary On the Origin of Species (1859), followed
some twelve years later by Descent and the following
year by Expression. The subject of Expression is the
evolutionary origins of human emotional expressions.
Darwin argued that human expressions can be traced to
animal ancestors; for example, that sneering expresses
displeasure because it is a vestige of biting to attack
in our evolutionary progenitors. This was considered
radical, as it is was a purely mechanical interpretation
of human behaviour, affording no role to the soul or
other spiritual factors. Expression infl uenced genera-
tions of physiologists, some of whom used photography
themselves, notably including Jean Martin Charcot
(1825–93) and Sigmund Freud (1856–1939).
Because many expressions occur faster than the
naked eye can comprehend, Darwin struggled to un-
derstand which muscle groups are involved in certain
expressions. He supposed photography could help by
freezing and recording transient expressions for analy-
sis. Technologically, this idea was ahead of its time as
instantaneous photography had not advanced to the point
at which rapid action could be depicted. Nevertheless,
Darwin tried to obtain photographs depicting common
human expressions. Beginning around 1869, he began
to shop for appropriate photographs in London print
sellers and photographic studios. At least forty-one such
pictures are held in the Darwin Archive at the University
of Cambridge Library. They include examples by The
London Stereoscopic Company, Giacomo Brogi, and
James Landy among others. He also obtained photo-
graphs from friends and acquaintances, principally in
Europe. Among these was a group depicting crying
infants by the German painter and photographer Adolph
Diedrich Kindermann (1823–92), two of which were
published in Expression.
During this time Darwin encountered Guillaume-
Benjamin Duchenne de Boulogne’s infl uential atlas
Mécanisme de la Physiologie Humaine. Darwin owned
two copies of the book, illustrated with photographs by
Adrien Tournachon. Darwin corresponded with Duch-
enne and, with his permission, reproduced eight of his
photographs in Expression. Darwin also corresponded
with the psychologist James Crichton Browne (1840–
1938), who had begun using photography to study
patients in his care at the West Riding Lunatic Asylum.