Louis Jacques Mandé DAGUERRE (Cormeilles-en-Parisis, 1787 - Bry-sur-Marne, 1851) Effect of light on a Gothic tower Pen and brown ink, brown wash and brown highlights, scraped paper Annotated 'Daguerre' on verso Light effect on a gothic tower, pen and brown ink, brown wash and brown highlights, by. L. Daguerre 4.53 x 2.76 in. 11.5 x 7.0 cm Provenance: Galerie Jean-Marie Le Fell, Paris ; Acquired from the latter on 3 October 2013 by Gérard Levy ; Gérard Levy Collection; Then by descent Best known as the creator of the diorama and inventor of the daguerreotype, Louis Daguerre also had an honourable career as a painter and draughtsman. Exhibiting at the Salon from 1814, he joined the Ambigu Comique as chief decorator in 1816, before replacing Degotti at the Opéra in 1819. As a draughtsman for Baron Taylor and Charles Nodier's book Voyages pittoresques et romantiques dans l'ancienne France, he specialised in architectural paintings of Gothic ruins, which were often related to the motifs of his theatre sets. Produced in the 1820s, our drawing follows on from Daguerre's work on the ruins of Jumièges Abbey. Although the exact process remains obscure, this type of smoke drawing embraces a variety of techniques in which the artist uses both soot, a traditional compound for ink prints, and candle smoke, traditionally used by engravers to 'smoke' the plates so that the image can be seen more clearly. Here, Daguerre alternates light and shadow in a brown wash whose transparency reveals a fingerprint in the lower left-hand corner of the sheet, giving this striking work the status of a relic. Louis Jacques Mandé DAGUERRE (Cormeilles-en-Parisis, 1787 - Bry-sur-Marne, 1851) 11.5 x 7.0 cm Best known as the originator of the diorama and inventor of the daguerreotype, Louis Daguerre also had an honourable career as a painter and draughtsman. Exhibiting at the Salon from 1814, he joined the Ambigu Comique as chief decorator in 1816 and replaced Degotti at the Opéra in 1819. As a draughtsman for Baron Taylor and Charles Nodier's book Voyages pittoresques et romantiques dans l'ancienne France, he specialised in architectural paintings of Gothic ruins, which were often related to the motifs of his theatre sets. Produced in the 1820s, our drawing follows on from Daguerre's work on the ruins of Jumièges Abbey. Although the exact process remains obscure, this type of smoke drawing embraces a variety of techniques in which the artist uses both soot, a traditional compound for ink prints, and candle smoke, traditionally used by engravers to 'smoke' the plates so that the image can be seen more clearly. Here, Daguerre alternates light and shadow in a brown wash whose transparency reveals a fingerprint in the lower left-hand corner of the sheet, giving this striking work the status of a relic.