Noël Marie Paymal Lerebours

The Pont Neuf in Paris (1842)

Noël Marie Paymal Lerebours (born February 15, 1807 in Neuilly ; † July 24, 1873 ) was a French optician and publisher .

Life

Noël was born the son of Marie Jeanne Françoise Paymal, a tailor from Paris (born in Vitry-sur-Marne); the father is unknown. In literature he is often met with the first name Nicolas instead of Noël, but this is incorrect. On June 11, 1836, he was adopted by Noël Jean Lerebours. The adoptive father (1761–1840) was a French optician, appointed optician for the Navy and the Bureau des Longitudes in 1800 , as well as supplier to the imperial family and famous for the perfection of his lenses . After the death of his adoptive father in February 1840, Noël Paymal took over the company founded in 1789 at 13 Place du Pont-Neuf in Paris, where he had been employed since 1830.

Noël was enthusiastic about the first real photographic process, the daguerreotype , which was developed in 1839. Only a short time after Louis Jacques Mandé Daguerre presented the process , Lerebours had commissioned the painter Horace Emile Jean Vernet and his nephew Frederic Goupil-Fresquet to photograph the most important architectural sights and views of the world or existing photos from the USA and Russia etc. to acquire. In 1841 he exhibited 1,500 portraits in France's first commercial portrait studio in Paris. The exposure time was eight minutes on average. In the same year he published the very first picture book in Paris, “Excursions Daguerriennes. Collection de 50 planches representant les vues et les monuments les plus remarquables du globe ”. The publication was a huge success, so that in 1842 the second volume followed, "Nouvelles Excursions Daguerriennes". A total of 114 images appeared. For printing reasons, the resulting daguerreotypes could not yet be reproduced by direct photomechanical means and therefore steel engravings were made on the photographic templates, which were expanded to include details that the camera did not document, such as: B. clouds, boats, animals and people in the scenes. Among the graphic artists who worked for Lerebours was Charles-François Daubigny (1817–1878), one of the masters of the medium.

In 1844 Lerebours completed a 15 " telescope - one of the largest of the time - which was purchased by the Bureau des Longitudes.

In 1855 Lerebours first used rotary apertures with three different openings placed in front of the lens . In the same year he took the Swiss professor of mathematics in Lausanne Marc Louis François Secretan (1804-1867) as a partner. The company was renamed and expanded to Lerebours & Secretan . In 1855 Secretan became the sole owner of the company, but continued to operate as Lerebours & Secretan until the 1880s.

Daguerreotypes

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  The Acropolis in Athens

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  The Kremlin in Moscow

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  Grand Canal in Venice

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  Triumphal Arch in Paris

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  The Colosseum in Rome

See also

• History of Photography
• Chronology of Photography