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and photographer. In August 1859 he joined an expe-
dition organized by Emmanuel-Guillaume Rey, under
the aegis of the Ministry of Public Education, to study
Crusader architecture in Syria and Asia Minor. After
spending six months with Rey, De Clercq continued to
travel through Syria, Palestine, Egypt and Spain pho-
tographing architectural ruins, landscapes, cities, and
rural scenes using the waxed paper negative process,
possibly because it was less cumbersome than using
collodion glass negatives. He returned to France in 1860
and published the result of his travels in a six-volume
work entitled Voyage en Orient, 1859–1860. Consisting
of 222 prints (primarily albumen) made from negatives
measuring about 21.5 × 28 cm and several panoramas
made from negatives joined together, Voyage en Orient
reveals de Clercq’s affi nities for sweeping panoramas,
dramatic chiaroscuro lighting, and stark compositions
dominated by architectural masses. In 1861, de Clercq
exhibited the entire Voyage en Orient at the Société
Française de Photographie’s fourth exhibition. In 1862,
he exhibited three photographs at the Universal Ex-
hibition in London, where he received an honorable
mention. Institutions with complete sets of Voyage en
Orient include the Gilman Paper Company collection at
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; The Canadian
Center for Architecture, Montréal; The Louvre, Paris;
and the Musée d’Orsay, Paris.
Sarah Kennel
DE LA RUE, WARREN (1815–1889)
This English astronomer, chemist and physicist is
best known for his pioneering work on astronomical
photography, which opened up a tremendous series of
opportunities for astronomers. However, he had a varied
career in more than one scientifi c fi eld, and was himself
a craftsman, as well as an industrial inventor.
Warren was the son of Thomas de la Rue. His father,
Thomas de la Rue, who had been a newspaper publisher
in Guernsey, later founded a large fi rm of printers and
stationers in London in 1821. On completion of his edu-
cation at the Collège Saint-Barbe in Paris, Warren began
working at his father’s printing business, but in his spare
time he began conducted research into chemistry and
electricity in his spare time. In 1829 he had made the fi rst
known attempt to produce an incandescent light bulb.
Although an effective design, his use of platinum for the
fi lament made it commercially unviable. Between 1836
and 1848 he published several papers into his fi ndings
on both chemistry and electricity. Warren’s interest in
astronomy was sparked while watching his friend, the
Scottish engineer, James Nasmyth (1808–1890) at work
on the casting of a speculum for use in a telescope for
observing the sky at night and this caused de la Rue’s
own thoughts to turn to astronomy. De la Rue later com-
missioned Nasmyth to make him a 13-inch speculum
which Warren ground and polished himself and used
in the construction of a refl ecting telescope in 1850,
which Warren then used to observe and make drawings
of celestial objects.
In 1851 Warren saw a daguerreotype of the moon by
G. P. Bond exhibited at the Great Exhibition in London.
When de la Rue saw the daguerreotype of the moon he
was inspired to attempt to use the wet collodion process
to take photographs of the surface of the moon. The wet
collodion photographic process had been only recentlyDE CLERQ, LOUIS
de Clerq, Louis. Denderah, Porte d’
Entrée.
The Metropolitan Museum of Art,
Gilman Collection, Gift of The
Howard Gilman Foundation, 2005
[2005.100.500.4 (35)] Image © The
Metropolitan Museum of Art.