Bertel Thorvaldsen: A Daguerreotype Portrait from 1840

In July 1840, the Parisian businessman A.C.T. Neubourg arrived in Copenhagen by ship from Lubeck. He was on his annual business trip in northern Europe and had in his baggage a brand new device, a so-called daguerreotype an early version of a camera, with which he took views and portraits. He visited the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts, housed in the palace of Charlottesborg in central Copenhagen, and there, in the garden behind the palace, he took a daguerreotype of the elderly sculptor Bertel Thorvaldsen. The picture has miraculously survived, and today it is one of the oldest preserved photographs in the world. Two views of Copenhagen taken by Neubourg with the same camera during the same trip have also survived. Heavily illustrated, this book examines the daguerreotype, and offers a discussion and analysis of the early photos by Neubourg. In an appendix to the book, the architect and photographer Jens Frederiksen analyzes the three daguerreotypes and the lens system of the came