# Boulevard du Temple > Louis Jacques Mande Daguerre - 1838 > Canonical HTML: https://iconotheca.com/artworks/louis-daguerre/daguerre-boulevard-du-temple/ > Published by Servola Systems GmbH. Last verified: 2026-08-10 ## Tombstone - **Artist:** Louis Jacques Mande Daguerre - **Date:** 1838 - **Medium:** Daguerreotype (iodized, silver-plated copper plate, developed in mercury vapor and fixed in a salt solution) - **Dimensions:** Approximately 13 x 16 cm, per secondary literature; not confirmed against a primary museum specification sheet in the sources consulted. - **Object type:** Photograph - **Period:** French, 1838, the first year of the publicly announced daguerreotype process - **Current location:** Bayerisches Nationalmuseum, Munich, Germany - **Attribution:** accepted ## Summary A daguerreotype made from an upper window near Daguerre's own workshop in Paris in 1838, showing a wide boulevard that appears deserted because its exposure of several minutes erased everything that moved through it. In one corner, a shape that held still, a man having his boots polished, and by one later reading a second, blurred figure doing the polishing, are usually credited as the earliest people ever fixed on a photographic plate.Daguerre gave the plate, with a companion midday view and a studio still life, to Ludwig I of Bavaria in 1839 as a demonstration of his new invention. It reached the Bayerisches Nationalmuseum by transfer in 1868 and remains there, but every source consulted for this record agrees that the original plate was later damaged by a cleaning attempt, and one serious academic source states plainly that it was destroyed, leaving only its frame. The sources disagree by more than a decade on when this happened, and this record has not smoothed that disagreement into a single account.What most people see when they see this image is not a photograph of the object as it exists today. It is a reproduction of a reproduction, made from a copy negative shot before the damage occurred, of a plate whose two most famous figures have never been named and whose exact damage date is not established in any source this record could verify. ## Provenance Every link carries a grade. `documented` means a cited source supports it, `disputed` means the identification is argued but not established, `unknown` means we have no owner for that span and have not bridged it. - **1838-1839** Louis Jacques Mande Daguerre `[documented]` (origin) Exposed from a window near Daguerre's own apartment beside his Diorama building on the rue des Marais, Paris, in 1838 (the precise date within the year is itself disputed; see Open Questions). Daguerre retained the plate, along with a companion midday view and a studio still life, as a presentation set. - **1839-1868** Ludwig I, King of Bavaria `[documented]` (gift) Daguerre presented the three plate set, with a dedication inscription in his own name, to Ludwig I of Bavaria. A Cambridge University Press essay collection gives 20 October 1839 as the date the set went on display at the Kunstverein in Munich. The set remained in the Bavarian royal collection for close to three decades. - **1868-present** Bayerisches Nationalmuseum, Munich `[documented]` (transfer) The museum's own online collection database records the accession as a transfer ('Ueberlassung') in 1868, under inventory R 6312.1-8. The legal mechanism of the transfer from royal to museum holdings is not specified in the source consulted. - **undated** Unresolved: the fate of the original plate material `[disputed]` (damage or loss) Every source consulted agrees the original plate or plates were damaged by a later cleaning or restoration attempt, but the sources disagree by more than a decade on when: shortly after the Second World War, in 1960, in 1970 (on loan to the Munich Stadtmuseum), or in 1974 (at the 'Munich Fotomuseum', per one academic source, which states the original was destroyed and only an empty frame survives). This record grades the event as disputed rather than adopting any single account. - **1936-1937** Beaumont Newhall (copy negative, not ownership of the plate) `[documented]` (reproduction) Newhall photographed the plate for an exhibition and publication project, producing a copy negative before the reported damage occurred. Facsimiles subsequently produced for display, and most photographic reproductions of the image in general circulation, are understood to derive from this copy rather than from a fresh photograph of the plate as it exists today. ## Open questions - What is the precise date of exposure? Most literature places it on a morning between 24 April and 4 May 1838, inferred from shadow length and foliage, but some sources give 1837 instead, and the sources consulted do not resolve the disagreement. - Are there one or two human figures in the frame? Beaumont Newhall's 1937 account described a single stationary man having his boots polished; a later reading credited to David Bate identifies a second, blurred figure, the bootblack at work. Neither figure has ever been identified by name in any source consulted. - Does the original plate presented to Ludwig I still physically exist? Every source agrees it was damaged by a later cleaning or restoration attempt, but the sources disagree on the date by more than a decade (accounts place it variously shortly after the Second World War, in 1960, in 1970, and in 1974), and one academic source states the original was destroyed outright, leaving only an empty frame. No conservation report resolving this was found. - What, precisely, does the Bayerisches Nationalmuseum hold today under inventory R 6312.1-8, and is any of it ever exhibited? The museum's own database describes the item as facsimiles in the original passepartout and frame, without stating where, or whether, any surviving original plate material is separately stored. - By what legal mechanism did the 1839 royal gift become Bayerisches Nationalmuseum property in 1868? The museum's record supplies only the German term for a transfer or cession and the year, with no further detail in the sources consulted. ## Sources - [1] Bayerisches Nationalmuseum, official online collection database, 'Triptychon Boulevard du Temple, Faksimiles im orig. Passepartout u. Rahmen', inventory R 6312.1-8. - [2] Gardner, John and Stewart, David, eds., Nineteenth-Century Literature in Transition: The 1830s (Cambridge University Press, 2024), Introduction, quoting Beaumont Newhall (1937) and David Bate on the figures, and giving the 20 October 1839 Munich display date and an account of the original's destruction around 1974. - [3] Wikipedia, 'Boulevard du Temple (photograph)'. Tertiary source consolidating press and specialist accounts; flagged for replacement with a primary museum conservation record where one becomes available. - [4] Wikipedia (French), 'Boulevard du Temple (Louis Daguerre)'. Tertiary source; gives the 1960 cleaning date, the approximate 13 x 16 cm plate dimension, the three-plate presentation set, the rue des Marais location, and cites a study by Andre Gunthert and Jacques Roquencourt on a rival, rejected 1837 dating claim for a different early daguerreotype. Flagged for replacement with a primary museum or scholarly source. - [5] Wikipedia, 'Louis Daguerre'. Tertiary source for the biography: training, the Diorama, the Niepce partnership, the 8 March 1839 fire, the 1839 announcement and pension, and the death date and place. Flagged for replacement with Gernsheim's scholarly biography of Daguerre. - [6] Library of Congress, '[Robert Cornelius, self-portrait; believed to be the earliest extant American portrait photo]'. - [7] Wikimedia Commons, file description and discussion for File:Boulevard du Temple by Daguerre.jpg and its 'unmirrored' variant, including the featured picture candidacy discussion addressing image orientation. - [8] Wikimedia Commons, file description and extended metadata for File:Boulevard du Temple, midi, Daguerre.png. - [9] Zeno.org, via Wikimedia Commons: digitized reproductions of the three panels of the Munich Daguerre presentation triptych. - [10] AZQuotes, quotation attributed to Louis Daguerre's 1838 prospectus. Tertiary quotation aggregator; the line is widely repeated in general histories of photography, but this record has not independently verified it against a primary manuscript. - [11] Wikimedia Commons, file description and extended metadata for File:Jean Baptiste Sabatier-Blot - Louis Jacques Mande Daguerre - Google Art Project.jpg. --- Images on this record are public domain or CC0 and are hosted by us. No image on this site is generated or simulated. If you quote this record, quote the provenance grades with it.