398
Turkey, Lebanon, Syria, Alep, Baalbek, Damas, Beirut,
and Jerusalem near Palestine, and Cairo, Alexandria,
Memphis, Thèbes, Louxor, Karnak, Philae, and Assouan
in Egypt. Girault de Prangey took daguerreotypes of
these places, primarily of monuments and landscapes
but also some portraits as well.
In 1844 or 1845, he returned to France with more
than one thousand plates and an abundance of written
documents. The exceptional quality of these images
was due both to his mastery of the chemistry and his
compositional skills. Girault de Prangey used length-
ened vertical or horizontal formats (panoramic), which
were obtained by dividing the full plates (19 × 24
cm). These were used, resulting in strange images and
unusual sizes (often 9.5 × 24 cm). Some of them were
used for Arab illustrations Monuments arabes d’Egypte,
de Syrie, d’Asie Mineure dessinés de 1842 à 1845, and
Monuments et paysages de l’Orient, which were taken
respectively in 1846 and 1851.
Girault de Prangey was elected as an Honorary mem-
ber and Royal corresponding member of the Institute of
British Architects in 1846. The beginning of the 1850s
seems to have been devoted primarily to his fi eld and his
passion of botany, even though he continued to practise
photography, and not just the daguerreotype but also
stereoscopy during the 1860s. He died on December
7, 1892, in his villa of Tuaires with Courcelles-Valley-
in Esnoms (Haute-Marne). In 2001, the Bibliotheque
nationale acquired a major collection of nearly one
hundred and fi fty of his daguerreotypes, illustrating the
great breadth of his photographic work. Together with
their existing holdings (acquired form a descendent,
the Comte de Simony, in 1950), this acquisition made
it possible to assess the importance of his work with the
daguerreotype, both quantitatively and qualitatively. In
addition, in the summer of 2002, sixty-one daguerreo-
types of views of Switzerland (Bern, Oberland, and the
mountains) were discovered in the Musée Gruérien, in
Bulle, Switzerland, which revealed new perspectivies on
his work. In addition to signifi cant holdings in private
collections, a number of de Pragney’s daguerreotypes
are also housed in the Gernsheim Collection, Univer-
sity of Texas at Austin. Some of his later stereoscopic
views are preserved at the Musée Nicéphore Niépce in
Châlon-sur-Saône.
Helene Bocard
Further Readings
Henri Brocard, “M.Girault de Prangey,” Bulletin de la Société
historique et archéologique de Langres, IV, 1893.
Quettier Philippe (dir), Sur les traces de Girault de Prangey
1804–1892, Musées de Langres et Dominique Guéniot
éditeurs, 1998.
Françoise Reynaud (dir), Paris et le daguerréotype, catalogue
d’exposition, Paris, musée Carnavalet, Paris-musées,
1989.
Comte Charles de Simony, «Une curieuse fi gure d’artiste, Girault
de Prangey, 1804–1892,» Mémoires de l’Académie des Sci-
ences, Arts et Belles-Lettres de Dijon, 1937.DEANE, JAMES (1801–1858)
In the 1850s Dr James Deane MD of Greenfi eld, Mas-
sachusetts developed a procedure for photographing
delicate trace fossils he had fi rst observed in 1835 in
sandstone slabs quarried in the Connecticut valley.
Deane proposed that these “curious impressions” were
the prints of extinct birds (later proved to be dinosaurs
footprints). He sold casts and promoted his ideas to
natural historians including Reverend Edward Hitch-
cock (1793–1864) the Professor at Amherst College
Massachuisetts. Hitchcock went on to become a major
authority in the fi eld known as ichnology; a branch of
paleontology concerned with animal and plant fossil
traces. Deane later complained Hitchcock had taken
his priority. From 1843 he published many articles in
scientifi c journals but no books prior to his premature
death in 1858. A an account of his 20 years of research
titled Ichnographs from the sandstone of Connecticut
River including 22 salt prints of his photographs, was
published in Boston in 1861.
Deane was not the fi rst to publish photographically
illustrated scientifi c treatises, fossils photographs had
been published in Europe and in America; Dr John
C. Warren (1778–1856) founder of Harvard Medical
school, used a salt print of a fossil slab taken by profes-
sional George Silisbee, as a frontispiece in his 1854 book
Remarks on Some Fossil Impressions in the Sandstone
Rocks of Connecticut River. Deane’s work was also
overshadowed by the massive tome published in 1858
by Hitchcock on the fossil prints. It was illustrated with
seven albumen prints by a professional photographer,
J. Lovell of Amherst. Supplements of Hitchcock’s vol-
ume were published in 1863 and 1865, with dramatic
irregular shaped photographs.
Gael Newton
See also: Palaeontology; Books illustrated with
photographs: 1840s; Books illustrated with
photographs: 1850s; and Books illustrated with
photographs: 1860s.Further Reading
Bouvé, T.T., “Dr James Deane,” Proceedings of the Boston Society
of Natural History, 6 (1856–59): 391–394.
Deane, Dr James, Ichnographs from the Sandstone of Connecticut
River, Boston: Little Brown, 1861.
Hitchcock, Edward, Ichnology of New England. A report on
the sandstone of the Connecticut valley especially its fossil
footmarks made to the government of the commonwealth of
Massachusetts. Boston: Wright Potter, State Printers, 1858
[and supplements 1863, 1865].
Jäger, Dr. Gustav, Berichtüber ein fastvollständiges Skelet von