LONDON – Historic pictures of the Paris uprising of 1848, the first photographic images to be used in a news story, sold for 182,000 pounds ($265,000) last Thursday, auction house Sotheby‘s said.
The two daguerreotypes — images on metal plates — were taken by a pioneering French photographer named Thibault during the tumultuous June revolt in which more than 3,000 Parisians were killed. The plates were turned into engravings which appeared in the newspaper „L‘Illustration Journal Universel“ alongside a story about the uprising. Sotheby‘s said earlier it expected the lot of two plates, two wood engravings and a copy of the newspaper to sell for between 170,000 and 200,000 pounds.
Thibault‘s first photograph of the rue St Maur on June 25 shows a deserted cobbled street piled high with debris to form barricades. The second image, taken the following day, is of the same street, this time filled with inhabitants and soldiers with cannons. Daguerreotypes made their debut in 1839 and although highly popular in the early 1850s had become obsolete by 1860 when photographs onto paper had taken over.
Reuters
