[Rooftops, Paris]

The French physicist Armand Hippolyte Louis Fizeau, perhaps best known for measuring the speed of light, was also at the center of a group of early photographic experimenters who attempted to reproduce the unique daguerreotype in ink by transforming the silvered copper plate into a printable, etched matrix. Fizeau worked with various engravers to develop his process, including Johan Hurlimann, Augustin-François Lemaître, and Louis-Henri Brévière. Brévière, a printer for the Imprimerie royale, is linked to Fizeau through a group of daguerreotypes and associated prints that were likely made at Fizeau’s residence at 17, rue du Cherche-Midi in Paris. This daguerreotype view over the neighboring rooftops is one of many related images that display traces of the chemical and physical experiments that ultimately resulted in the creation of an electroplated and engraved daguerreotype from which impressions were printed on paper.