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France, as to restore the effi gies of the newly triumph-
ing middle-class.
The exhibition was presented in the ‘Crystal Palace’
built by Joseph Paxton, a palace of glass and cast iron,
which was noted in the history of architecture for its
vast metal structure which made it comparable to a
greenhouse. Large workshops were built in the following
years in the centers of London or Paris, the light entered
in abundance; it made it possible to capture interior
scenes, as a very beautiful daguerreotype of the Baron
Gros (Paris, BNF) attests, which showed a part of the
exhibition and made it possible to have an idea of the
interior space and the arrangement of the objects and
decoration. The effect of transparency and space was
not the only contribution to the idea of the erasure of
hierarchy among the exhibited products.
The Great Exhibition excluded painting; sculpture,
engraving, and architecture were allowed there because
of the roles they had in industrial creation. Photography
did not constitute a section in itself: it was included in
class X (instruments, clock making, surgical, musical,
philosophical), and in the department of the “machines
and instruments,” in a relatively narrow space. One
could also see photographs from various sections of
the country. Three photographers had the honor of the
court of the fi ne arts: Thomas Craddock, David Octavius
Hill, and Samuel Buckle. It was the fi rst great exhibition
of photography on the international scale, opened in a
fertile period in inventions (collodion by Scott Archer,
stereoscopy by Brewster, on the English side) and in
photographic foundations of all kinds (société helio-
graphique, Blanquart-Evrard printing works, Missions
heliographique, newspaper La Lumière, on the French
side); La Lumière published two reports on the Great
exhibition, one of which was signed Jules Ziegler,
painter, photographer, and critic of art.
Approximately 770 photographic images were pre-
sented by six countries. Those shown might have seemed
weak compared to what was then being produced in the
rest of the photographic world, but only major studios,
manufacturers, or photographers could take part because
of the very high cost of transportation and insurance
and of the risks of losses or accident during the voyage;
moreover, the foreign participants needed an agent on
the spot. In fact, three nations provided most of the ex-
hibited works: England, the United States, and France.
The three others were Germany, represented by William
Albert and Frederic Strauch, both of Frankfort am Main
(the fi rst exposed reproductions of objets d’art); Austria
was represented by Paul Pretsch, with views of Vienna,
of Schoenbrunn, and reproductions of sculptures; Italy
was represented by F and G Vogel, of Milan, with por-
traits based on paper negative.
All the techniques practiced since 1839 were shown;
the two dominant processes were the daguerreotype
and the paper negative, for which it was necessary to
add negative glass to albumen. Wet collodion negative,
developed at that point by Scott Archer in 1849, was
introduced in 1851, the year of the exhibition; for this
reason, it was hardly present (whereas in 1855, in Paris,
collodion dominated the whole of the exhibited works).
The daguerreotype was still well represented, especially
by the Americans, who were honored by the panel: por-
traits by Brady, portraits by Meade, a Sight of the moon
by Whipple, a Panorama of Cincinnati by Fontayne and
Porter. Jules Ziegler criticized the presentation of the
American daguerreotypes, which were placed under a
platform that darkened the room considerably and ac-
centuated the mirror effect of the plates, which made
viewing diffi cult. The English Martin Laroche and
John Mayall showed, on daguerreotypes, reproductions
of sculptures. The French daguerreotypists included
Amédée Thierry, of Lyon (self-portrait, scene of Lyon),
Vaillat, Sabatier, Victor Plumier. Others who exhibited
little afterwards are less known today: the manufacturer
Christofl e (a daguerreotype), A. Gouin (ten portraits with
the daguerreotype including eight colored), Maucomble,
present in Paris in 1844 (fi ve portraits with the daguerre-
otype). The Schiertz manufacturer sent apparatuses. The
technique of the stereoscopy, published a few months
earlier by David Brewster, its inventor, constituted one
of the innovations of the exhibition; Queen Victoria was
fascinated by the stereoscope and Brewster sent one to
her only a few days later, built in Paris by Duboscq. The
photographers Claudet and Mayall showed stereoscopic
daguerreotypes. French photography included work by
several leading pioneers in early paper photography:
Hippolyte Bayard (three frames containing 17 prints
if the monuments of Paris and Rouen, of the reproduc-
tions of low-reliefs and statuettes, as well as “Gothic
portraits” mentioned by Ziegler), Flacheron-Hayard,
of the circle of photographers established in Rome
(seven great sights of Rome), the Blanquart-Evrard
printer (tallies of nine prints), Cousin (landscapes and
portrait of woman), Gustave Le Gray (eighteen prints
without precise details), Henri Le Secq (twelve shots
of the cathedrals of Amiens, Chartres, Rheims). Fred-
eric Martens exhibited a panoramic sight of a tower of
Notre-Dame captured with the mégascope, a panoramic
apparatus of his invention, and other prints obtained
with the apparatus of Lerebours and Secrétan. Among
the English, Antoine Claudet, a Frenchman located in
London, who had appeared in the Parisian exhibition of
1844 with daguerreotypes and works on paper, showed
portraits of the daguerreotype and various processes of
his invention. The Scots David Octavius Hill and Robert
Adamson were present with several frames containing
of the scenes obtained on paper negative (Fishermen of
the village of Newhaven, close to Edinburgh) as well as
portraits. Hugh Owen of Bristol should be mentioned,