622
Beasley certainly knew one another; they may even have
been close friends, and it is even possible that they were
related by marriage (I would guess Greene to Beasley’s
daughter)—although that remains to be established. In
any event, it seems very likely (if not probable) that
John Beasly Greene was named after Reuben Beas-
ley—though if this is indeed the case, the reason for the
different spellings needs to be clarifi ed.
Will Stapp
See also: Blanquart; Du Camp, Maxime; Goupil
& Cie; Le Gray, Gustave; Hunt, Leavitt and Baker,
Nathan Flint; Société française de Photographie; and
Waxed Paper Negative Processes.
Further Reading
Aubenas, Sylvie, and Jacques Lacarrière. Voyage en Orient.
Paris: Éditions Hazan and the Bibliothèque nationale de
France, 1999.
Greene, J.B. Fouilles exécutées à Thèbes dans l’anée 1855, texts
hiéroglyphiques et documents inédits. Paris: 1855.
Howe, Kathleen Stewart. Excursions Along the Nile. Santa Bar-
bara, CA: Santa Barbara Museum of Art, 1993.
Jammes, Andre, and Eugenia Parry Janis. The Art of French
Calotype. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press,
1983.
Jammes, Bruno. “John B. Greene, an American Calotypist.” His-
tory of Photography, vol 5, no. 4 (October 1981), 305–324.
Jammes, Isabelle. Blanquart-Evrard et les Origins de l’Édition
Photographique Française. Geneva. Switzerand: Librairie
Droz, 1981.
Newhall, Beaumont. “John B. Greene,” James Alinder, ed.,
Untitled 25: Discovery and Recognition. Carmel, CA: The
Friends of Photography, 1981, 33–40.
Perez, Nissan N. Focus East: Early Photography in the Near
east: 1839–1885.
New York: Harry N. Abams, Inc., and Jerusalem: The Domino
Press and The Israel Museum, 1988.
GREENLAW, COLONEL ALEXANDER
(1818–1870)
English photographer
Alexander Greenlaw was born in London and, at the
age of seventeen, joined the Madras Infantry as a cadet
and was posted to Trichinopoly in Madras.
His interest in photography dates from before 1855,
when he fi rst exhibited photographs at an exhibition of
art and industry in Madras.
He used both paper and glass negative processes,
having exhibited images on both at exhibitions organised
by the Photographic Society of Bombay, of which he
was a ‘corresponding member.’
In 1856 he produced an extensive series of large for-
mat, 16 × 18 and 16 × 20 inch, images on paper negative,
many of which are still extant, depicting the ruins of the
city of Vijayanagar in south-western India.
Despite his experience with collodion, Greenlaw’s
preferred method—which he used into the 1870s—was
his own simplifi cation of the calotype, which became
known as ‘Greenlaw’s Process.’ While collodion had
long been the process of choice throughout most of the
world, Greenlaw believed that a simple paper negative
process was the most ideally suited to the Indian climate
and conditions.
The earliest account of Greenlaw’s Process was carried
in Photographic News in January 1869, and extensive
accounts of it were carried in the 8th edition of John
Towler’s book The Silver Sunbeam in 1873, and in the 7th
edition of Abney’s Instruction in Photography in 1886.
John HannavyGROLL, ANDREAS (1812–1872)
Austrian photographerAndreas Groll was born on 30 November 1812 in Vienna
as a son of a man servant. He might have come into
close contact with photography as a consequence of his
employment and as a lab assistant at the polytechnic
institute (today the technical university) in Vienna from
1845 to 1853. At that time, the polytechnic institute
was the most important place of early photography in
Austria because of the employment of different profes-
sors (Johann Joseph of Prechtl, Anton of Schroetter,
who promoted Groll personally) and particularly the
activity of Anton George Martin. Groll busied him-
self at that time with the daguerreotype and salt paper
and albumen, moving from paper to glass negatives.
In addition, predominantly concerned with portraits and
architecture photographs (Viennese step Hans cathedral)
he developed, particularly interesting pictoral documents
of monuments. In co-operation with Eduard von Sacken,
Groll’s fi rst large special photographic work was to
photograph historical weapons and arms in the imperial
collections. Groll photographed locomotives of the K.K.
and at about the same time was granted privilege to the
Austrian state railway company (StEG) for the Exposi-
tion Universelle in Paris 1855. Comissioned by the StEG,
between 1860 and 1865 he produced another Album der
Banater Besitzungen, most originally in the combination
of landscape and industrial photographs as well as im-
ages of employees and native groups of peoples at this
oldest railroad line in what is Romania today. Groll’s
speciality remained photography of architecture. Subject
matters were historical buildings in Vienna, Prague,
Krakau, Kuttenberg and other places of the Austrian
Kronlande. New churches and stations came into Vienna,
which stood in connection with the large urban extension
after 1857. Groll’s photographs often appear remarkably
careless and nearly roughly arranged.
Maren Groening