Lot Essay
Piot was a traveller and a collector who became involved with photography in the 1840s after accompanying the daguerreotypist Thophile Gautier on a trip to Spain. He is recognised as being the first to try to use photography for comprehensive documentary surveys of monuments and works of art on a large scale, beginning with Italy and Greece. In 1851 his first publication, L'Italie monumentale comprising twenty-five instalments of five images was announced. He believed that in order to interest new collectors the pictures should resemble lithographs. His photographs were therefore mounted on vellum and engraved with the accompanying title and the traditional 'Piot, fecit et excudit'. Sadly, his venture was a financial disaster and the other proposed surveys were not received any better. Piot continued to exhibit his photographs throughout the 1850s.