[Daguerre] Historique et description de procédés Daguerréotype et du Diorama

par Daguerre, Peintre, inventeur du Diorama, officier de la Légion-d’Honneur, membre de plusieurs Académies, etc., etc. Paris, Susse Frères, Éditeurs, Place de la Bourse, 31. Delloye, Libraire, Place de la Bourse, 13, 1839, verso of the French title the address: "Paris, imprimé par Béthune et Plon", (4),79,(1),(2 "Catalogue des Sculptures"),(1 "L’Exposition (…)") p., with 6 lithographed plates, contemporary gilded half leather. Bound with: Historique et description des procédés dy Daguerréotype et du Diorama, par Daguerre (…). Nouvelle édition, corrigée, et augmentée du portrait de l’auteur. Paris, A, Giroux et Cie. (…), 1839, (4),76 pp., with lithographed frontispiece portrait and 6 plates.

Ad 1: Small chip in title page and in page 47-48, chip in white margin page 49-50; sl. foxed throughout the bookblock. Good copy, with a contemporary, hand-written notation (2 p.) bound in behind page 62: "Notes sur les nouvelles boites à Jode" (with tearing and slight damage), in which an improvement of the process is described, made known by Daguerre himself: "Monsieur Daguerre vient d’apporter à son procedé une grande amélioration (…)". See the "Bibliography of Daguerre’s Instruction Manuals" by Beaumont Newhall: there our edition is listed number 2! The first edition, unavailable for collectors (according to Newhall known in two copies, quite recently a third copy was auctioned) of this highly important "icunable" in the field of photography was published around 20 August 1839. Our edition - which is identical to the first edition aside from the title page and mentioned additions - is listed in the Bibliographie de la France on 14 September 1839. The book was an immediate bestseller, already in 1839 (the year in which the discovery of the process was officially made known) there appeared not only countless French prints, but also translations into English, German, Swedish and Spanish, in 1840 followed by Italian, Hungarian, and Polish editions. The address printed verso of the French title in our copy is a highly important item of identification: the first, as said unbelievably rare print was also printed by Béthune et Plon, and subsequently rejected. Afterwards, the printer provided copies for various publishers, of which our edition appeared first, only a few weeks after the very first print. Only one copy of our edition currently offered on the Internet has the address of Béthune et Plon not on the verso of the half title , but on the back side of the printed cover. Newhall does not mention the existence of variants in his bibliography. Ad 2: Newhall 8. Vague waterstain in outer margin and somewhat foxed throughout the whole book lock. Good copy, with - exactly as in the book mentioned earlier and with identitical text but in another hand - behind page 62 a contemporary handwritten notation (2 p.) bound in. "Notes sur les nouvelles boites à Jode". Furthermore a contemporary handwritten note is bound in after page 66 with the following French text, loosely translated: "Mr. Prechtl, director of the polytechnical institute of Vienna, gave me a way to fixate daguerrical images ["les images dagueriennes"]. The procedure exists of putting the plate in a hydro-sulfate-ammoniac solution, to leave it there for one minute and then wash it in a clean bath of water (…)." Ad convolute: two very early editions in one binding, clearly originally the property of a fellow artist and possibly even an acquaintance of Daguerre.