Boulevard du Temple (photograph)

Boulevard du Temple is a photograph of a Parisian streetscape made in 1838 (or possibly 1837[1]), and is one of the earliest surviving daguerreotype plates produced by Louis Daguerre.

[3][4] The earliest known photograph, the heliographic View from the Window at Le Gras, had been produced some ten years earlier using a technique that required an exposure time of some eight hours which meant that only static objects could be recorded.

[8] In October 1839, as a publicity effort, he presented King Ludwig I of Bavaria with a framed triptych of his work in which this photograph was the right hand image.

[13] This image was labelled as having been taken at huit heures du matin and a very similar plate was mounted in the left panel marked as midi.

[13] The triptych was put on display at the Munich Arts Association where they immediately attracted attention with the Leipzig Pfennig-Magazin saying of the 8:00 AM image that there appeared to be a man having his boots polished who must have been standing extremely still.

[13] The images were stored at the royal palace and later at the Bayerisches Nationalmuseum archives where they gradually deteriorated until in 1936 or 1937 the American historian of photography Beaumont Newhall rediscovered them and made reproductions for display in New York.

During World War II the original daguerrotypes were kept in poor conditions until in 1970 they were placed on loan with the Munich Stadtmuseum.