752
During the closing decades of the century, much com-
mercial photography was geared towards tourism, with
fi rms such William Lawrence’s Great Bazaar and Pho-
tographic Galleries, opened on March 20th 1865 at 5–7
Upper Sackville St. in Dublin and destroyed during the
1916 Easter Rebellion, producing stereoscopic views,
postcards and picture books for the tourist market. Por-
traits of political fi gures involved in Irish nationalism
such as the Fenians were also popular as carte-de-visite
and cabinet card series as were photographs of other
political events.
During the last years of the century many amateur
societies involved with ethnography, antiquities, archae-
ology and natural history established photographic clubs
to document their activities. Commercial photographer
Robert John Welch (1859–1936) from Belfast was an
active member of the Belfast Naturalists Field Club
and photographed many botanical, topographical and
ethnographic subjects during their fi eld work. Many
of these organisations used photography to document
aspects of Irish culture as part of the Gaelic Revival
and the county’s leading antiquarians, folklorists and
ethnographers were also keen amateur photographers
at the turn of the century.
Justin Carville
See also: Talbot, William Henry Fox; and Royal
Photographic Society.Further Reading
Carville, Justin. “Photography, Tourism and Natural History:
Cultural Identity and the Visualization of the natural World” in
Irish Tourism: Image, Culture and Identity, Michael Cronin &
Barbara O’Connor (eds.), Clevedon: Channel View, 2003.
Chandler, Edward, Through Brass Lidded Eye: Photography in
Ireland, 1839–1900, Dublin: The Guinness Museum, 1989.
Chandler, Edward, Photography in Ireland: The Nineteenth
Century, Dublin: Edmund Burke, 2001.
Davidson, David H., Impressions of an Irish Countess: The
Photography of Mary Countess of Rosse, Birr: Birr Scientifi c
Foundation, 1989.
Evans, E. Estyn & Turner, Brian (eds.), Ireland’s Eye: The Pho-
tographs of Robert John Welch, Belfast: Blackstaff, 1977.
Hickey, Kieran, The Light of Other Days: Irish Life at the Turn
of the Century in the Photographs of Robert French, Boston:
David R. Godine, 1973.
Hill, Myrtle & Polloock, Vivienne, Women of Ireland: Image and
Experience, 1880–1920, Belfast: Blackstaff, 1993.
Holland, Pat Tipperary Images: The Photography of Dr. William
Despard Hemphill, Cahir, Co. Tipperary: Thalassa Books,
2003.
Maguire, W.A., A Century in Focus: Photography and Pho-
tographers in the North of Ireland, 1839–1939, Belfast:
Blackstaff, 2000.
Rouse, Sarah, Into the Light: An Illustrated Guide to the Photo-
graphic Collections in the National Library of Ireland, Dublin:
National Library of Ireland, 1998.
Walker, Brian Mercer, Shadows on Glass: A Portfolio of early
Ulster Photography, Belfast: Appletree Press, 1976.ISENRING, JOHANN BAPTIST
(1796–1860)
Swiss daguerreotypist
An artist, engraver and early daguerreotypist—both
amateur and professional—Johann Baptist Isenring
introduced several early developments in photography.
Born in Sankt Gallen, Switzerland, in 1796, he became
interested in the daguerreotype almost as soon as the
process was announced, ordering his fi rst outfi t direct
from Paris before the end of 1839, and had produced
photographs of his home town by the end of that year.
In the following year he took portraits of his family and
friends, enjoying relatively short exposures due to the
clarity of the mountain air, and the enhanced levels of
ultra-violet light at altitude.
Isenring opened a portrait studio in Munich in
1841, pioneering his own process for the colouring of
daguerreotype portraits, with a technique for applying
pigment and gum acacia to the surface of the plate.
Either introducing colour with a brush, or dusting it
on to the surface through cut-out masks, his technique
involved the adhesion of the gum and pigment mixture
by breathing on the plate surface.
British Patent No.9292 issued to Richard Beard in
1842, and entitled ‘Colouring Daguerreotype Pictures’
was based on Isenring’s method, the Swiss photographer’s
process being acknowledged only indirectly as ‘commu-
nicated to me by a certain Foreigner residing abroad.’
John HannavyITALY
After François Arago’s report to the Académie des Sci-
ences in Paris on 7 January 1839, that Jacques Louis
Mandé Daguerre (1787–1851) had succeeded in fi xing
camera obscura images, the news of his discovery was
received immediately and spread in the capitals of the
various Italian states by the most important journals and
scientifi c publications. In the centres in which cultural
matters were most hotly debated—Milan, Turin, Venice,
Bologna, Genoa, Naples, Rome—both experimental and
professional photography was enthusiastically taken up
by operators from the most diverse backgrounds like
optics, chemistry, painting and engraving. Publications
like “La Gazzetta privilegiata di Milano,” “Il Politec-
nico,” “Messaggere Torinese,” “Gazzetta Piemontese,”
“Lucifero” and “Poliorama pittoresco,” described and
discussed the discovery of the daguerreotype process
well before 19 August 1839, the date when, at Da-
guerre’s side, Arago ( 1786–1853) fi nally revealed the
formula of the new invention at the joint meeting of
Academy of Sciences and the Academy of Arts in Paris.
In the capitals of the pre-union Italian states, Daguerre’s
manual (Paris: Alphonse Giroux, 1839) was published inIRELAND
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