THÉODORE MAURISSET (1803-1860) La Daguerreotypomanie. Lithograph, the image measuring 10x14 inches (25.4x35.6 cm.), with Maurisset's signature in the plate, and the printed title and printer's credits on recto. Circa 1839
Provenance: Bert Hartkamp Collection, Amsterdam
Public interest in daguerreotypes was apparent from almost the first announcement of Daguerre's success. This well-known satire for the mania imagines a world in which thousands might line up to have their image made and photographers and other entrepreneurs displace engravers (note the gallows). Even the clock is shaped like a camera, an allusion to the ways in which the camera might take over and change the world.
Hartkamp, a lawyer, was an avid collector. His collection of photographs would eventually be sold to the state of the Netherlands and become the basis of the 19th-century photographs collection at the Rijksmuseum. A second collection of photographs was sold at auction in 2002.
