“Atransparent Atmosphere”: The Paper Negatives of Frédéric Flachéron in the Harrison D. Horblit Collection

Abstract

Jean-Françoise-Charles-André Flachéron, Count Frédéric Flachéron, was born in 1813 in Lyons, France. Trained as a painter and sculptor, in 1839 he moved to Rome after winning the second Grand Prix de Rome. Between 1848 and 1853 Flachéron systematically photographed the great architectural monuments of Rome and its environs using a variant of Henry Talbot's paper negative process, the calotype. To date, approximately 155 negatives by Flachéron are known to have survived; the Harrison D. Horblit Collection of Early Photography at the Houghton Library at Harvard University contains 37. The examination and analysis of this important group of paper negatives became the focus in a Conservation Treatment Grant jointly sponsored by the Getty Grant Program and the Department of Printing and Graphic Arts, Houghton Library. Of primary interest in the study was the identification and interpretation of coatings found on the Flachéron negatives, during which several methods of analysis were employed.