LA PHOTOGRAPHIE, SES ORIGINES, SES PROGRÈS, SES TRANSFORMATIONS

Lille: Imprimerie L. Danel, 1869. First edition. 4to., Original printed front wrapper, 2 blanks, half-title, title, 61 pp., 14 leaves of plates with tissue guards, rear printed wrapper. Newly bound in half navy morocco and marbled paper over boards, spine in 6 compartments with raised bands and gilt titling, rules and simple decorative devises. There are two rubbed spot on the spine. A fine and bright copy. Additionally, this copy is signed and inscribed by Blanquard-Evrard: "a M. Poitevin, hommage affectuer." Louis Désire Blanquart-Évrard's 'Imprimerie Photographique' opened in 1851 in Loos-lès-Lille. This facility was the first of its kind in France, with his production higher than that of Talbot in England. Through his advances on the calotype process and the albumen print, he was an active publisher of books, albums and portfolios. However, his original estimate of the costs involved in operation fell well short, and by 1855 he closed his factory. A partnership with Thomas Sutton in Jersey began in September of 1855, and closed in 1857. LA PHOTOGRAPHIE, SES ORIGINES, SES PROGRÈS, SES TRANSFORMATIONS, is regarded as his enduring work, an accurate history of the first three decades of photography, illustrated with contemporary examples. "Seminal discussion of photomechanical printing and photographic illustration ... the text of this treatise was the earliest to explore the importance that these new processes would eventually have in printing and publishing. Blanquart-Evrard clearly understood that the ink-based image would eventually completely replace the silver based print in publishing."--Hanson Collection catalog, p. 36.

The original mounted plates include: Blanquard-Évrard's 1852 printing of a Maxime Du Camp photograph from Egypte, Nubie, Palestine et Syrie; photo-lithographs by Zurcher; a heliogravure by Baldus; carbon prints by Ernest Edwards and Alphonse Braun, et al.

There are three different editions with this title; one is of a smaller format, and one was issued in 1870 for presentation and has additional plates. Most copies of this quarto edition of 1869 have fourteen plates. The presentation of this copy to Alphonse Louis Poitevin is significant; Poitevin is responsible for the basic principles of photolithography, carbon printing, and collotype printing.

Exceedingly rare, with WorldCat locating only two copies of this editions: Rijkmuseum, and the Bibliotheque Nationale de France. Roosens and Salu No. 928.