This beautiful art will soon overcome the obstacle of price and time… To achieve this end, it is necessary to replace the silver salts which are employed today, by the ordinary drawing of the positives by roller printing… M. Ch. Nègre has kindly placed at our disposal… a specimen of skill, demonstrating what one operator has already achieved in the practice of these processes. [1]

The printing of photographic positives was a laborious and inefficient process whose results varied from print to print, and prohibitive costs often meant that each project never saw completion. In the 1850s, the desire of photographers to follow the model of engravers and lithographers in the distribution of near-exact copies to a wide market base was still technically unfeasible. This problem formed the context for Nègre’s turn to experiment with photogravure as a viable means to pull permanent and standard prints by traditional printing methods.

Nègre first experimented with the open, unpatented process of Niépce de Saint-Victor in the years 1854–55. After testing a series of improvements, Nègre patented his own process in 1856. An early example of Negre’s process titled ‘Paris en miniature, Hotel de Cluny’ appeared as the frontis in Monckhoven’s famous treatise overview, Traité Général De Photographie (1856). The plate was made before November, 1854.

One of the earliest photogravures to appear in a book.