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most scholars. The clear metallic plate succeeded in
reproducing every detail. Enhancing both the main and
unwanted details of the subject went against the pictorial
theory of sacrifi ce. A long story of uncomfortable rela-
tionships between artistic institutions and photography
had then been opened. Photographers had to wait until
1859 to see their works be shown at the perimeter of
the offi cial Salon in Paris. Meaningfully, photographs
have been admitted into the French Academy of Fine
Arts since only 2006.
Indeed such an opinion was not shared by everyone
and did not prevent the new invention from developing
quickly in France thanks to its wide-spread availability
since Daguerre and Isidore Niépce were funded by the
French State for their invention. At the beginning of the
1840s, daguerreotypists opened studios in Paris (around
ten in 1841, mostly in the Palais Royal area) and in the
major cities of Camille Dolard in Lyon, Desmonts in
Marseille, Finck in Strasbourg. Some Academics even
showed their interest in photography. If Paul Delaroche’s
too famous sentence is not true (“From now painting
is dead!”), then his opinion toward daguerreotype
was indulgent, if not enthusiastic. As Arago reported:
“ Line’s accuracy,,” Mister Delaroche said, “and form’s
precision are as consistent as it could be thanks to Mr.
Daguerre ‘drawings’ [dessins] (...) Painters found in the
new process a quick way to create a whole collection
of sketches they could not get otherwise without time
and patience” (Arago, op. cit.).
In September 1839 Horace Vernet and Frédéric
Goupil-Fesquet sailed to Egypt; the optician Lerebours
had given a camera and daguerrian products to Fesquet.
Unfortunately all the plates he made are lost today. From
1842, Lerebours published in two volumes Les Excur-
sions daguerriennes [The Daguerrian Excursions] with
plates engraved from daguerreotypes. Arago’s dream,
to reproduce accurately all the world’s marvels, came
almost to life just few a years after his announcing his
plan. Jules Itier, Joseph Philibert Girault de Prangey,
and the Baron Jean-Baptiste Gros were among the pas-
sionate amateurs who practiced daguerreotype and made
beautiful plates on their trips to China and around the
Mediterranean Sea. Stanislas Ratel and Louis Choiselat
traveled the South of France in the mid-1840s. Durig
their traveling they took outstanding panoramic views of
cities and countryside. Their panorama of Toulon Harbor
made of fi ve daguerreotypes was the fi rst photograph
made of famous roads.
Daguerre’s acknowledgment by the French State
established the daguerreotype as the fi rst photographic
process and left the other researches in the shadows.
Hippolyte Bayard showed his fi rst direct positives on
paper to Arago in May 1839. The faithful Daguerre’s
supporter seemed to have ignored them. In July Bayard
took part in a charity show in favor of Martinique. After
seeing Bayard’s tests Raoul-Rochette, secretary of the
French Academy of Fine Arts, was far more enthusiastic
in his support of Daguerre’s invention: “Mister Bayard’s
drawings look like old masters drawings, beautifully
used by time.” (Désiré Raoul-Rochette, “Académie
Royale des beaux-arts, rapport sur les dessins produits
par le procédé de M.Bayard” [“Royal Fine Arts Acad-
emy, Report on drawings made thanks to Mr. Bayard’s
process”], Le Moniteur universel, November, 13th.
1839, 2009–2010).
An important factor in developing images was paper
smoothness, which appealed to Academicians. They
were also attracted to an image built upon light and
shade. Bayard himself, Humbert de Molard, Blanquart-
Evrard researched on paper during the 1840s. The latter
managed to perfect Talbot’s process around 1844. Blan-
quart-Evrard’s own calotype formula spread in France
from 1847 among artistic circles. Artists were drawn to
the process for its closeness to engraving, thanks par-
ticularly to image reproduction. Several painters from
Paul Delaroche’s studio—Gustave Le Gray, Charles
Nègre, Henri Le Secq—were among fi rst adepts. Le
Gray played a central role in the diffusion of photog-
raphy among Parisian artistic circles. Many of the fi rst
French calotypists had been his pupils in his Barrière de
Clichy’s studio from 1849–1850, like Maxime du Camp,
Joseph Viguier, and Alexis Lagrange. Léon de Laborde,
an archeologist, and curator for sculpture at the Muse
du Louvre, had also been his pupil. Impressed by the
quality of prints Le Gray showed at the 1849 Exposition
des Produits de l’Art et de l’Industrie [Industrial and
Fine Arts Products Exhibition], de Laborde had been
one of his active supporters among cultural circles. In
Sèvres, in the West suburb of Paris, Victor Regnault—di-
rector of the French China Manufacture—and Louis
Robert—head of painting studios—led one of the most
active and creative groups working on photography
during the Second Empire.
In 1851 the fi rst photographic institution was born.
The precise role of the Société héliographique [The
Heliographic Society] was not easy to defi ne. Neverthe-
less the association which gathered painters (Eugène
Delacroix, Jules Ziegler), architect (César Daly),
critics (Champfl eury, Francis Wey, Léon de Laborde)
and photographers (Gustave Le Gray, Henri Le Secq,
Charles Nègre, Maxime du Camp, Edouard Baldus,
for instance) played a central part in the recognition
of photography (André Gunthert, “Le roman de la
Société héliographique” [“The Heliographic Society
novel”] in Etudes photographiques, no. 12, November
2002, 37–64). The Société heliographique had been
founded around Bayard and Le Gray to promote paper
photography and its aesthetic in front of daguerreotype,
which was still the leading process at that time, both
in industrial and critical terms. The active part of the