The art critic Théophile Silvestre commissioned the painters Victor Laisné and Emile Defonds and the photographer Edouard Baldus in 1853 to produce portraits and reproductions of works by Corot, Delacroix, Chenavard, Daumier, Diaz and Ingres. The project was intended to illustrate the history of French and foreign living artists. The original publication of Silvestre’s book in 1853 contained tipped in salted paper prints. When a new edition was published in 1856 the photographs were replaced by engravings. Although the title page said the engravings were based on daguerreotypes, a number of them were actually created from Victor Laisne and Emile Defonds paper print photographs of three years before.