Lot Essay
If Hippolyte Bayard is to be remembered for anything in regard to the startling swiftness with which he contributed to the birth of photography, it may be that of the role of a spoiler in an otherwise bipartisan race to make history. Without the exact knowledge of Daguerre's or Talbot's techniques, Bayard, in the first six months of 1839, secured positive images directly on paper with what seemed to be a wedding of the plate and paper methods. His contribitions in this regard were of significant historical importance, predicting the eventual supremacy of paper photography over the daguerreotype.
In what was surely the very first public display of photographs, on Bastille Day 1839, Bayard exhibited thirty direct positives on paper that he had executed in the prior four months. The effect these unpredicted objects caused was echoed in the critical reviews of the exhibition. In one, the author exclaims, "...it was the photographic drawings that roused the greatest enthusiasm. Their author M. Bayard modestly calls them trials, ... but the result is of exquisite fineness, a harmony of softness of light that painting will never attain. Nothing could be more charming than these little forms bathed in elusive half-light like the chiaroscuro of nature. Art had better resign itself in comparisons such as these to remain ever inferior to reality." (c.f., Jammes and Janis, The Art of French Calotype, p. 3).
Similar to the daguerreotype, each direct positive was unique and the result of a process where an image was created without the use of an intermediary step. It wasn't until February 1840 when Bayard made public his process (ibid, p. 146), indicating it to be a positive reversal method (a precursor to today's Cibachrome or color slide films). Like Talbot's process, the result was on paper and more easily viewed than the finicky silver plates of Daguerre.
Unfortunately, Bayard suffered from the political climate surrounding the announcement of Daguerre's process on January 7, 1839. With François Arago, director of the Paris Observatory supporting the daguerreotype, Bayard was overlooked as Arago presented Daguerre's invention to the Academy of Sciences. Essentially ignored at first, in Beaumont Newhall's History of Photography, Bayard is remembered as "the most luckless pioneer" in the field of photography (op. cit., p. 44). Whereas Daguerre and Niepce each were given annuities for the sharing of their secrets with the French Academy, Bayard went without any renumeration despite the great difference in his approach. In 1840, Bayard annotated an infamous self-portrait in which he appears as a drowned man. He wrote, "The body you see is that of Monsieur Bayard... The Academy, the King, and all of you who have seen his pictures admired them, just as you do. Admiration brought him prestige, but not a sou. The Government which gave M. Daguerre too much, said it could do nothing for M. Bayard at all and the wretch drowned himself." (ibid) Bayard would eventually master both processes by Daguerre and Talbot and be renown for this skill. In 1849, Bayard became the first member of the Société Héliographique to photograph for the Commission de Monuments Historiques, earning one hundred francs (ibid, p. 147).
Works by Bayard in private hands are scarce. As Jammes and Janis point out, "Virtually all Bayard's photographs, negatives and experiments were bequeathed to the S.F.P. (Société Française de Photografie), which remains the sole source for the study of his achievement." (op. cit., p. 147). (Other collections where Bayard's work is held include the J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles and the Gilman Paper Company. See: Hambourg, et al., The Waking Dream, pl. 38 and n. 45, p. 281) The statuary study offered here is an extremely early execution of Bayard's technique. Annotated "Essai de photographie directe sur papier, Mars-Avril 1839" in pencil on the verso, it matches the inscription on the Gilman Paper Company print, Windmills, Montmartre. Like the Gilman print, the statuary study bears the patina of an ancient forebear, distinctly familiar yet strangely foreign.
In what was surely the very first public display of photographs, on Bastille Day 1839, Bayard exhibited thirty direct positives on paper that he had executed in the prior four months. The effect these unpredicted objects caused was echoed in the critical reviews of the exhibition. In one, the author exclaims, "...it was the photographic drawings that roused the greatest enthusiasm. Their author M. Bayard modestly calls them trials, ... but the result is of exquisite fineness, a harmony of softness of light that painting will never attain. Nothing could be more charming than these little forms bathed in elusive half-light like the chiaroscuro of nature. Art had better resign itself in comparisons such as these to remain ever inferior to reality." (c.f., Jammes and Janis, The Art of French Calotype, p. 3).
Similar to the daguerreotype, each direct positive was unique and the result of a process where an image was created without the use of an intermediary step. It wasn't until February 1840 when Bayard made public his process (ibid, p. 146), indicating it to be a positive reversal method (a precursor to today's Cibachrome or color slide films). Like Talbot's process, the result was on paper and more easily viewed than the finicky silver plates of Daguerre.
Unfortunately, Bayard suffered from the political climate surrounding the announcement of Daguerre's process on January 7, 1839. With François Arago, director of the Paris Observatory supporting the daguerreotype, Bayard was overlooked as Arago presented Daguerre's invention to the Academy of Sciences. Essentially ignored at first, in Beaumont Newhall's History of Photography, Bayard is remembered as "the most luckless pioneer" in the field of photography (op. cit., p. 44). Whereas Daguerre and Niepce each were given annuities for the sharing of their secrets with the French Academy, Bayard went without any renumeration despite the great difference in his approach. In 1840, Bayard annotated an infamous self-portrait in which he appears as a drowned man. He wrote, "The body you see is that of Monsieur Bayard... The Academy, the King, and all of you who have seen his pictures admired them, just as you do. Admiration brought him prestige, but not a sou. The Government which gave M. Daguerre too much, said it could do nothing for M. Bayard at all and the wretch drowned himself." (ibid) Bayard would eventually master both processes by Daguerre and Talbot and be renown for this skill. In 1849, Bayard became the first member of the Société Héliographique to photograph for the Commission de Monuments Historiques, earning one hundred francs (ibid, p. 147).
Works by Bayard in private hands are scarce. As Jammes and Janis point out, "Virtually all Bayard's photographs, negatives and experiments were bequeathed to the S.F.P. (Société Française de Photografie), which remains the sole source for the study of his achievement." (op. cit., p. 147). (Other collections where Bayard's work is held include the J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles and the Gilman Paper Company. See: Hambourg, et al., The Waking Dream, pl. 38 and n. 45, p. 281) The statuary study offered here is an extremely early execution of Bayard's technique. Annotated "Essai de photographie directe sur papier, Mars-Avril 1839" in pencil on the verso, it matches the inscription on the Gilman Paper Company print, Windmills, Montmartre. Like the Gilman print, the statuary study bears the patina of an ancient forebear, distinctly familiar yet strangely foreign.