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Louis Daguerre Biography

Louis Daguerre Image

DAGUERRE Louis Jacques Mande, painter and physicist, born at Cormeilles, France, in 1789; died near Paris, July 12, 1851. His first occupation was that of a revenue officer, but later he took lessons as a scene painter for the opera. His attention was called in 1814 by Nicephore Niepce to the subject of photographic pictures on metals. The two joined in experimenting for fifteen years with an alloyed process, in which a plate coated with asphaltum was exposed in a camera and the image developed by dissolving away the unalloyed portions by oil of lavender. Most of the work was done by Daguerre, who perfected the process, which has since been called Daguerreotype, in 1833. The French government granted a pension of $1,200 to Daguerre, one-half of which was to revert to his widow, and also a pension of $800 to the son of Niepce. Other processes have superseded the Daguerreotype.

The Teachers' and Pupils' Cyclopædia, Vol. I (Kansas City: Bufton Book Co., 1909) 459.