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PROPERTY FROM THE ESTATE OF BRADFORD K. BACHRACH LOUIS JACQUES MANDÉ DAGUERRE 1787-1851 SELECTED DAGUERRE MANUALS

A group of 3 early Daguerre manuals, comprising Historique et Description des Procédés du Daguerréotype et du Diorama, par Daguerre... Nouvelle Edition (Paris: Alphonse Giroux et Cie, 1839), illustrated with a frontispiece portrait of Daguerre and 5 plates; Description of the Daguerreotype Process, or A Summary of M. Gouraud's Public Lectures, According to the Principles of M. Daguerre (Boston: Dutton and Wentworth's Print., 1840); and Description de Nouveaux Daguerréotypes Perfectionnés et Portatifs, avec L'Instruction de M. Daguerre, Annotée... Par Buron (Paris: Imprimerie de Mme Ve Donday-Dupré, 1841), illustrated with a folding plate. 8vo, original wrappers, the second and third volumes loosely sewed together and in a contemporary folding cloth slipcase, the third inscribed 'S. A. Bemis' in pencil on the front wrapper and 'Dr. S. A. Bemis' in pencil on the half-title (3)

CATALOGUE NOTE

The manuals offered here were owned by a member of the famous Bachrach portrait studio family. The business was founded by David Bachrach, Jr. (1845 - 1921), who began his camera apprenticeship in 1860s Baltimore. The first Bachrach studio was opened in that city in 1869, and over the next decades, branches spread to a number of other cosmopolitan centers. The history of the Bachrachs, who defined an American photographic portrait style for over a century, is recounted in Douglas Collins's Photographed by Bachrach: 125 Years of American Portraiture (New York, 1992).

What appears to be the ownership signature of Dr. Samuel A. Bemis is inscribed on the front wrapper and half-title of the 1841 manual. Bemis (1793 - 1881), a dentist, attended Gouraud's lectures in Boston in the spring of 1840, and produced some of the earliest daguerreotypes in America.