Daguerreotype

What it is

A unique, highly detailed image on a silvered copper plate sensitised with iodine and developed with mercury vapour, with exposures of a few minutes. Presented in 1839 and given 'free to the world' by the French government, it sparked the first photography craze.

Presented to the Academy of Sciences by Arago on 7 January 1839 and detailed in August; Talbot claimed priority in England as soon as he heard of the announcement.

What it led to

• Portrait studios in every city ('daguerreotypomania')
• Travel, archaeological and astronomical photography (the Moon, 1840)
• A state pension for Daguerre: the first public 'buyout' of a patent
• Competition with the calotype and the negative-positive model

Built on

• Silverc. 3000 BCE
• Camera obscura (Alhazen)c. 1021
• Iodine1811
• Photography (heliography)1826-1827
• Niépce's heliography
• Iodine and mercury chemistry

Made possible

• Stereoscope1838
• Photographic fixing with thiosulfate (Herschel)1819-1839
• Bayard's direct positive paper process1839-1840
• Petzval portrait lens1840
• Hyalotype (Puhar's photography on glass)1841-1842
• Wet collodion process1851
• Photo booth1925
• Commercial photographic portraiture

Links

Sources✓ verified 2026-09-25

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daguerreotype