Le Thésée de Phidias/ Fragment du Fronton du Parthenon d'Athènes/ Maintenant au Musée Britannique

Public domain photograph of Louis Desire Blanquart, 19th-century artistic early photography, free to use, no copyright restrictions image - Picryl description

Louis-Désiré Blanquart-Evrard was a French photographer and publisher, born in 1802 in Lille, France. He is best known for his contributions to the development of photographic printing techniques. In 1848, he invented the albumen print process, which was widely used for making photographic prints in the latter half of the 19th century. This process involved coating a piece of paper with a mixture of egg whites and salt and then exposing it to a light-sensitive silver nitrate solution. The resulting print was sharper and more detailed than earlier photographic prints, and it quickly became the standard printing method for many photographers.

Blanquart-Evrard established one of the first photographic publishing houses, producing albums of photographs and publishing photographic journals. He also manufactured photographic paper, cameras and other equipment. He was a pioneer of the photographic industry, who helped to make photography more accessible and affordable for amateur photographers. He died in 1872.