In 1836 Collas developed a new machine that carefully copied, in mathematically precise reduction or enlargement, the relief and chiaroscuro of medallions and other bas-relief objects onto engraved steel plates, producing what he called a ‘numismatic engraving’ also known as Anaglyptograph. The collection of the Trésor de Numismatique, a precursor to photomechanical reproduction, contains over a thousand engraved plates and reproduces upward of 15,000 specimens. Brunet V, 938 (International Weekly Miscellany, No. 9, Vol.1, p. 257, August 26, 1850)
Benson, Richard, and David Frankel. The Printed Picture. New York, NY: The Museum of Modern Art, 2008. p. 93. (alt)
Hanson, David A. Checklist of Photomechanical Processes and Printing, 1825-1910. , 2017. p. 35 (alt).
Paris, Muséum national d’Histoire naturelle (MNHN), bibliothèque centrale
Wakeman Geoffrey. 1973. Victorian Book Illustration: The Technical Revolution. Newton Abbot: David & Charles
Hanson, David Checklist of photomechanical processes and printing 1825-1910, 2017 p. 25
Benson, Richard, and David Frankel. The Printed Picture. New York, NY: The Museum of Modern Art, 2008. p. 92-93 (alt) Also see the video The Printed Picture: Bits and Pieces https://printedpicture.artgallery.yale.edu/bits-and-pieces @5:00
Batchen, Geoffrey. Each Wild Idea: Writing, Photography, History (Cambridge, Mass.; London: MIT Press, 2001)
Buss, Jacques (ed.). Dictionnaire critique et documentaire des peintres, sculpteurs, dessinateurs et graveurs de tous les temps et de tous les pays (Paris: Gründ, 1999)
Dictionnaire de biographie française (Paris: Librairie Letouzey et Ané, 1933- ), IX (1961)
Fawcett, Trevor. ‘Plane Surfaces and Solid Bodies: Reproducing Three-Dimensional Art in the Nineteenth Century’, in Art History through the Camera’s Lens, ed. Helene E. Roberts, introd. Mary Bergstein (Amsterdam: Gordon and Breach, 1995), pp. 59-85.
Nolte, Vincent. ‘Memorial of Facts Connected with the History of Medallic Engraving and the Process of M. Collas’, Museum of Foreign Literature, Science, and Art, 32 (1838), 113-19.
Sobieszek, Robert A. ‘Sculpture as the Sum of Its Profiles: François Willème and Photosculpture in France, 1859-1868’, Art Bulletin, 62 (1980), 617-30.
Thieme, Ulrich, and Felix Becker (eds). Allgemeines Lexikon der Bildenden Künstler: von der Antike bis zur Gegenwart (Leipzig: Seemann, 1907-50)
Victoria and Albert Museum. Art & Design in Europe and America 1800-1900, introd. Simon Jervis (London: Herbert, 1987)
See Literary Gazette 1837 Article about flaws in Collas’ french system and improvements by the British.