Louis Jacques Mandé Daguerre
1787-1851
French Artist and Inventor
Louis Jacques Mandé Daguerre was born in 1787 to a middle-class family in Cormeilles, near Paris. He was an accomplished scenic designer who created the Diorama and invented the daguerreotype, the first practical method of making photographs.
Daguerre's artistic talent was evident at an early age. He served apprenticeships with a local architect and a stage designer in Paris. At 28 he was appointed scenic designer of the Paris Opéra. Two years later, he cofounded the Diorama, a theater in which enormous, lifelike murals and special lighting effects created the illusion of changing scenes. Audiences flocked to see famous sights such as the tomb of Napoleon, an alpine village, and Canterbury Cathedral.
To obtain the exact perspectives that were crucial for making these scenes appear real, Daguerre relied on a camera obscura. The camera, used by painters for centuries, was a box with a lens on one end and a mirror at a 45-degree angle on the other. The mirror reflectedan image onto a glass on the top of the box, where it could be copied onto translucent paper. In time, Daguerre began to experiment with making the reflected images permanent.
Louis Jacques Mandé Daguerre. (The Library of Congress. Reproduced by permission.)Daguerre bought the lenses for his camera from Vincent Chevalier, a Parisian optician. Another of Chevalier's customers was Nicéphore Niépce (1765-1833), who had invented a method of recording the camera's reflected image on chemically treated paper and stone plates. After hearing about this invention from Chevalier, Daguerre wrote to Niépce. Over the next few years, the two men met in Paris and exchanged many letters before finally signing a partnership agreement. They collaborated via letters written in a number code devised by Daguerre to guard the secrecy of their experiments. In one letter, Daguerre suggested substituting silver iodide for the asphalt substance Niépce was using, a critical innovation that would shorten the time required to create an image from eight hours to several minutes. Daguerre also designed a new lens that produced sharper images.
After Niépce's death in 1833, Daguerre maintained a partnership with Niépce's son Isidore but conducted his research independently. Daguerre continued to improve his silver-iodide method by treating the exposed silver-iodide plate with mercury vapor. He gave creditto Nicéphore Niépce for the original invention but took credit himself for perfecting the process, which he named the daguerreotype in 1838. Daguerre's work impressed the Académie des Sciences so strongly that the French government offered to buy his invention. Eminent scientists of the day traveled to Daguerre's studio to see demonstrations. One of them, Samuel F. B. Morse (1791-1872), the American inventor of the telegraph, marveled at the daguerreotypes' "exquisite minuteness of...delineation."
In 1839 Daguerre's Diorama, his only source of income, burned to the ground. His supporters convinced the French government to grant a generous annual pension to both Daguerre and Isidore Niépce in return for their publishing the technical details of both the original research and the daguerreotype. Daguerre, although described as timid and embarrassed as a speaker, gave demonstrations and classes and wrote a brochure that became an international bestseller. A company was created to manufacture the equipment for making daguerreotypes, with one-half of the profits going to the manufacturer and the rest shared by Daguerre and Isidore Niépce. As the daguerreotype grew popular around the world, others made improvements that shortened the exposure time to forty seconds by 1841.
Daguerre retired to Bry-sur-Marne, a small village outside Paris. Behind the altar of the local church, he painted a mural that gave the impression of leading into an immense cathedral. He died of a heart attack in 1851.
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