Background
Edouard-Denis Baldus was born in 1820 in France.
Edouard-Denis Baldus was born in 1820 in France.
Between 1851 and 1855 he fulfilled a commission by the Comité des Monuments Historiques to photograph monuments in Paris, Fontainebleau, Burgundy, the Dauphiné, Normandy, Auvergne and Provence. He was also commissioned by Baron James de Rothschild to photograph railroad lines in France. In 1854-55 he took extensive photographs of a new wing of the Louvre in Paris
In 1854 he was the first to cover copper plates with a light-sensitive asphalt coating. In 1854 he etched such plates in a galvanic bath.
Baldus used the calotype process through 1851, and by 1852 was using the improved waxed-paper method. His negatives were transparent and almost devoid of gram. By 1856 he was working with collodion wet-plate negatives and albumen prints. Frequently using formats as large as 17'/2X23, Baldus mainly produced images of monuments and architecture throughout France, as well as "industrial landscapes."
He was a founding member of the Société Héliographique in 1851.