Antoine Claudet

Claudet was born in La Croix-Rousse, France, the son of Claude Claudet, a cloth merchant and Etiennette Julie Montagnat.http://authorities.loc.gov/webvoy.htm Anglo-American Name Authority File, s.v. "Claudet, A.", LC Control Number nr 88000067, cited 10 February 2006http://www.getty.edu/vow/ULANFullDisplay?find=Claudet%2C+Antoine&role=&nation=&prev_page=1&subjectid=500024177 Union List of Artists Names, s.v. "Claudet, Antoine", cited 10 February 2006

Early in his career Claudet headed a glass factory at Choisy-le-Roi, Paris, together with Georges Bontemps, and moved to England to promote the factory with a shop in High Holborn, London. Having acquired a share in L. J. M. Daguerre's invention, he became one of England's first commercial photographers using the daguerreotype process for portraiture, improving the sensitizing process by using chlorine (instead of bromine) in addition to iodine, thus gaining greater rapidity of action.{{EB1911|inline=y|wstitle=Claudet, Antoine François Jean|volume=6|page=463}}

He invented the red darkroom safelight, and it was he who suggested the idea of using a series of photographs to create the illusion of movement. The idea of using painted backdrops has also been attributed to him.

From 1841 to 1851 he operated a studio on the roof of the Adelaide Gallery (now the Nuffield Centre), behind St. Martin's in the Fields church, London, where in 1843 he took one of only two surviving photographs of Ada Lovelace. He opened additional studios at the Colosseum, Regent's Park (1847–1851) and in 1851 he moved his entire business to 107 Regent Street, where he established what he called a "Temple to Photography".{{Cite journal|last=Monteiro|first=Stephen|date=2008-10-01|title=Veiling the Mechanical Eye: Antoine Claudet and the Spectacle of Photography in Victorian London|journal=19: Interdisciplinary Studies in the Long Nineteenth Century|issue=7|language=en|doi=10.16995/ntn.485|issn=1755-1560|doi-access=free}}

It has been estimated that he made 1,800 pictures every year with subjects including Michael Faraday and Charles Babbage.{{Cite web|url=https://blogs.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/adalovelace/2015/10/14/only-known-photographs-of-ada-lovelace-in-bodleian-display/|title=Only known photographs of Ada Lovelace in Bodleian Display|date=2015|website=Bodleian Libraries blog|access-date=10 October 2017}} His daguerreotype of Hemi Pomara, in the National Library of Australia, is the oldest known photograph of any Māori person.{{cite web |last1=deCourcy |first1=Elisa |last2=Jolly |first2=Martyn |title=How we uncovered the oldest surviving photograph of a Māori person |url=https://thespinoff.co.nz/society/01-07-2020/how-we-uncovered-the-oldest-surviving-photograph-of-a-maori-person/ |website=The Spinoff |accessdate=1 July 2020 |date=1 July 2020}}{{cite news |last1=Roy |first1=Eleanor Ainge |title=Oldest surviving photograph of Māori discovered in Australia |url=https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jun/30/oldest-surviving-photograph-of-maori-discovered-in-australia |accessdate=1 July 2020 |work=The Guardian |date=30 June 2020}}

In 1848 he produced the photographometer, an instrument designed to measure the intensity of photogenic rays; and in 1849 he brought out the focimeter, for securing a perfect focus in photographic portraiture.{{cite book|title=Photography: Its History, Processes, Apparatus, and Materials: Comprising Working Details of All the More Important Methods|author=Brothers, A.|date=1899|publisher=C. Griffin, limited|url=https://archive.org/details/photographyitshi00brotuoft|page=[https://archive.org/details/photographyitshi00brotuoft/page/225 225]|accessdate=2017-08-20}}

He was elected a fellow of the Royal Society in 1853, and in 1858 he produced the stereomonoscope, in reply to a challenge from Sir David Brewster.

Claudet received many honours, among which was the appointment, in 1853, as "Photographer-in-ordinary" to Queen Victoria, and the award, ten years later, of an honor from Napoleon III of France.

Antoine and Julia Claudet had eight children, the youngest of whom was Francis George Claudet (1837–1906) who became a noted amateur photographer in Canada.{{cite book |last1=Mattison |first1=David |title=Encyclopedia of Nineteenth Century Photography |date=2013 |publisher=Taylor & Francis |isbn=9781135873271 |pages=304–5 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=yVFdAgAAQBAJ&q=%22francis+george+claudet%22+1837&pg=PA305 |access-date=20 April 2021}}

Antoine Claudet died in London in 1867 and is buried in Highgate Cemetery. Less than a month after his death, his "Temple to photography" was burnt down, and most of his valuable photographs were lost.[https://web.archive.org/web/20041228013558/http://www.cartage.org.lb/en/themes/Biographies/MainBiographies/C/ClaudetA/claudet.htm A brief biography of Antoine Claudet]. cartage.org.lb.

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Category:1797 births

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