Christian Piil
1496/1855
L'Enfant Prodigue by Albert Dürer

Etching from a daguerreotype
2 3/8 x 3 1/16 in.
 
Archive Farms
The Patrick Montgomery Collection, Object No. 2022.682b.
 
The Imperial Austrian State Printing Office in Vienna became one of the world's outstanding printing establishments under the direction of Alois Auer (1813-1869). This image was taken by Christian Actonius Theodorus Piil (1804-1884), Danish goldsmith, photographer, and inventor who was employed by Auer in 1851 to develop a technique which would make it possible to etch daguerreotype plates and print from them using a book printing press. Piil made his own cast-coated paper, since he realised that the normal etching paper was too rough to record the fine details of the daguerreotype. But the project failed and Piil returned to Copenhagen in 1855. Piil gives more details about this process in his book: Piil, Christian. 1855. Über das Ätzen und Abdrucken von Daguerreotyp-Bildern. Vienna: K.K. Hof- und Staatsdruckerei, which contains several examples. This print appears tipped into Auer's periodical Gunterberg/i>, published by the Austrian State Printing Office in 1855.
 
LL/123505