618
and the collections here presented are incomparably
superior to any to be found in a European metropolis,
without exception.” Whether this was true or not, it was
generally understood by New Yorkers to be so, and the
exhibition provided an outstanding venue for the city’s
and the country’s self-celebration as a world center of
photography.
Among the daguerreotypists exhibiting at the Crystal
Palace were such well-known practitioners as Mathew
B. Brady, Jeremiah Gurney, Alexander Hesler, Marcus
Aurelius Root, and Gabriel Harrison, with lesser-known
fi gures such as William C. North, Enoch Long, Anthony
K. Zuky, John Adams Whipple (inventor of the “crayon
daguerreotype”), and Samuel L. M. Meacham.
The Crystal Palace building was used for a variety
of purposes following the closing of the exhibition.
The building burned down in a spectacular blaze, itself
the subject of many well-known photographs, on 5
October 1858.
Francis Morrone
See also: Brady, Mathew B.; Daguerreotype; Great
Exhibition of the Works of Industry of All Nations,
Crystal Palace, Hyde Park (1851); Gurney, Jeremiah;
Harrison, Gabriel; Hesler, Alexander; Root, Marcus
Aurelius.
Further Reading
Burrows, Edwin G., and Mike Wallace, Gotham: A History of
New York City to 1898 (New York: Oxford University Press,
1999).
“The Crystal Palace,” New York Times, 15 July 1853, 1.
“The Crystal Palace,” Scientifi c American, 20 August 1853.
“Daguerreotyping in New York,” Daguerreian Journal, Novem-
ber 1850.
Jayne, Thomas Gordon, The New York Crystal Palace: An Inter-
national Exhibition of Goods and Ideas, Ph.D. dissertation,
University of Delaware, 1990. UMI order no. 1341318.
Greeley, Horace, Art and Industry as Represented in the Exhi-
bition at the Crystal Palace, New York, 1853-4 (New York:
Redfi eld, 1853), 171–176.
Keyes, Donald D., “The Daguerreotype’s Popularity in America,”
Art Journal, Winter 1976, 116–122.
“Mineralogy at the Crystal Palace,” New York Times, 29 March
1853, 2.
“Photography in the United States,” Photographic Art-Journal,
June 1853.
Richards, William C., A Day in the New York Crystal Palace,
and How to Make the Most of it (New York: G.P. Putnam &
Co., 1853).
GREECE
Interest in traveling to Greece has a long history and, to
judge from the ever-increasing number of visitors, the
desire to see the country remained unaffected by the
constant political social changes within Greece. Due
to its geographical location the country served both as
a place of transit for voyagers to the Holy Land and as
a destination in itself. The country was photographed
for the fi rst time in October 1839, only two months
after the offi cial announcement of Daguerre’s method
at the French Académie des Sciences in Paris. The fi rst
daguerreotypes were taken by the Canadian Pierre
Gustave Joly de Lotbinière (1798–1865) who was
travelling across the Mediterranean on behalf of Noel
Marie Paymal Lerebours. According to Lotbinière’s
diary he made a total of eleven daguerreotypes in Ath-
ens, but only three of these images—the Parthenon, the
Propylea and the Temple of the Olympian Zeus—were
included, as aquatints, in Lerebours’s album entitled Les
Excursions Daguerriennes: Vues et Monuments les plus
remarkables du globe.
The oldest existing daguerreotypes of Greece belong
to the French artist and historian of Islamic architec-
ture Joseph-Philibert Girault de Prangey (1804–1892).
Prangey visited the Greek capital during his travels in
the Mediterranean and the Near East in 1842. He spent
approximately fi ve to six weeks photographing not only
the classical monuments but also examples of early
Byzantine architecture.
Photography was introduced to the Greek popula-
tion by travellers visiting the country. Its was in 1846
when the French photographer Philibert Perraud taught
the secrets of the new medium to the Greek painter
Philippos Margaritis. The eleven daguerreotypes that
survive testify that the two men worked together for
a short period of time. In 1853, Margaritis opened the
fi rst professional photographic studio in Athens where
members of the Royal Family and celebrities were
photographed, earning him the title of the ‘fi rst Greek
professional photographer.’
The non existence of talbotypes in Greece verifi es the
assumption that Greek photographers did not practice
the calotype process. The pioneer calotypist to visit
Greece was Reverend George Wilson Bridges who was
travelling in the Mediterranean between the years 1846
and 1852. During his travels, Bridges made a total of
1700 negatives, sixty-six of which pictured Grecian an-
tiquities. On his return to England in 1852, he had made
plans for the publication of an illustrated folio entitled
The Illustrations of the Acropolis of Athens and a supple-
ment to it, containing 36 and 30 calotypes respectively.
It appears that the album was never published.
The early 1850s was a period of further transition
in terms of photographic technology. The calotype was
replaced by the wet collodion process making photog-
raphy more resistant to elements such as hot climates.
Additionally, travellers became increasingly intrigued
by the ‘new discovery,’ and the profession of photog-
rapher began to appear more attractive in commercial
terms. Thus began a dynasty of photographers whose
photographic views of the Grecian antiquities would