Daguerre, Louis Jacques Mandé | The invention of photography—the true first issue

Daguerre, Louis Jacques Mandé

Historique et description des procédés du daguerréotype et du diorama. Paris: Susse Frères, 1839

8vo (192 x 125 mm). Half-title, 6 lithographic plates, ads present at end; some foxing, minor flaws and restoration. Contemporary marbled paper-covered boards; extremities rubbed with some chipping to spine, upper joint weak but holding. Half morocco case, spine gilt-lettered.

First edition, the rare first issue of Daguerre's History and Description of the Daguerreotype Process, representing the greatest advance in graphic arts since the invention of printing.

“Nowadays photography is so completely taken for granted that it is difficult for us to realize how startling the idea seemed to Daguerre’s contemporaries that Nature could be made to produce a spontaneous picture unaided by an artist” (Gernsheim).

Daguerre, a set designer and creator of the famous Diorama—a picture show based on lighting effects (see lot 1007)—had spent years working with Joseph-Nicéphore Niépce to develop a viable photographic process. It was only after as Niépce died in 1833, however, that Daguerre accidentally discovered a method to produce the first successful permanent photographic image.

On 7 January 1839, Daguerre’s friend François Arago made a brief announcement of Daguerre’s process in the Chamber of Deputies. It was quickly determined that Daguerre and Niépce's heirs should be granted a pension for life and that the invention should fall into the public domain. Arago made a more detailed report to a joint session of the Chamber of Deputies and the Academy of Sciences on 19 August, and the first public demonstration occurred on 7 September. Early in September 1839, Daguerre’s Manual, as it is usually called, appeared. The work contains a discussion of the genesis of photography, a full illustrated account of Daguerre’s process, and related documents.

The bibliography of this book is complex. The first edition was issued with four different imprints (Susse Frères, Giroux, Molteni, and Lerebours), and these editions were identical with the exception of the imprints and the varying advertising inserts. Dozens of editions quickly followed in French, English, German, Swedish, and Spanish before the year ended (please find further information regarding the bibliography below).

It would be difficult to overstate the importance of the invention of Daguerre’s eponymous process of photography. Now regarded as one of the fathers of photography, his process was the first to be publicly available, and its possibilities were instantly fascinating, capturing the imagination of some of the greatest minds of the epoch (see lots 1011, 1023, 1027, 1033, 1040, and 1042). Charles Darwin, for example, was a great photography enthusiast. This is certainly evidenced through his Expression and Emotions in Man and Animal, in which he collaborated with Oscar Gustave Rejlander, and can also be seen through his many portraits (see lots 1032, 1015, 1018, 1030, and 1035). Indeed, Darwin’s first experience with the photographic process occurred in 1842, just three years after the announcement of Daguerre’s invention. The daguerreotype—depicting a young Darwin holding his son William—is remarkable in that it's the only daguerreotype Darwin is known to have had taken in his lifetime. It was also not intended for circulation, or scientific scrutiny. Instead, the image held pride of place on the Darwin family mantle.

"Perhaps no other invention ever captured the imagination of the public to such a degree and conquered the world with such lightening rapidity as the daguerreotype" (Gernsheim).

Bibliography:

The Giroux edition has been long mistaken as the first. In the Bibliography of Daguerre’s Instruction Manuals, Beaumont Newhall assigned priority to the Giroux printing, of which only two institutional copies are known, stating “published on or about 20 August” (Gernsheim 198-205). This assertion appears to be based solely on the fact that Daguerre arranged for Giroux, who was a relative of Madame Daguerre, to market his apparatus and Manual on an advertisement that appeared on the back page of the Gazette de France of 20 August 1839. But the legal literature of a case involving an engraver and printer named Giraldon helps to clarify priority. Giraldon sued Giroux for illegally reprinting the Manual, and reveals that Daguerre had contracted with Giraldon to publish his work. As no copies are known with a Giraldon imprint, it is evident that he printed the manual for several merchants, “Messrs. Giroux, Susse, and Lerebours,” varying only the imprints and the inserted advertising material. Giroux testified in his deposition that “It was agreed with Mr. Giraldon that he would deliver to me the first 300 copies, bearing my imprint. This undertaking was not fulfilled, and I therefore was no long bound to Mr. Giraldon. I reprinted the brochure, which everyone had the right to do ...” [italics added].

Daguerre scholar Pierre Harmant notes: “If one is to believe the Bibliographie de la France, only Susse Frères should be considered the original publishers of the Manual. The Bibliographie was the house organ of the Librairie Française. Each week it appeared with a list of works published in France during the week before. On 14th September, it listed Daguerre’s Manual for the first time (No. 4456), and the publisher’s name given there is Susse Frères.” After surveying notices of daguerreotypy at the other opticians in September, Harmant observes that no buyers or journalists mention it in August and writes, “we may safely conclude that the Manual was not available during August.” On 8 September, Isidore Niépce, the son of Daguerre’s late partner, wrote to his mother that “Daguerre has just published a brochure” on the process. In the letter, Niépce noted that “some days ago” he had quarreled with Daguerre concerning his father’s role in the invention. Niépce wrote that he thought they had parted amicably but “now the brochure ... has just appeared. It gives me a proof of his knavery.” This 8 September letter additionally suggests that Newhall’s 20 August date for the Giroux issue is in error.

More significantly, Daguerre himself confirms Niépce's comment that the brochure had “just appeared” by 8 September. Daguerre in fact testified in the Giraldon lawsuit: “On the day of my first meeting on the Quai d’Orsay [his first public demonstration of his process, September 7], I was astonished to see my brochure in everyone’s hands, while I myself did not have a copy. These copies bore the address of Mr. Susse, who was to have been supplied only after Mr. Alphonse Giroux” [italics added]. Given the family ties between Daguerre and Giroux, it is difficult to imagine that Giroux would have neglected to give the photographer a copy of the Manual had it been ready. As such, the present evidence clearly indicates that the Giroux Manuals were not immediately available, and further that the earliest copies issued in fact bore the Susse Frères imprint.

REFERENCE:

Gernsheim, L. J. M. Daguerre: The History of the Diorama and the Daguerreotype; Harmant, Pierre, “Daguerre’s Manual: A Bibliographical Enigma,” Journal of the History of Photography, I: 79-83; Norman 569; PMM 318b