ENLARGING PICTURES FROM SMALL PHOTOGRAPHS. -On the evening of October 7, the members of the British Association for the Advancement of Science held a soiree at the Guildhall, Cambridge, which was numerously and fashionably attended.
During the evening, M. Claudet exhibited pictures enlarged from small photographs. After having read on Monday, in Section A, a paper on the means of rendering more accurate the measurement of the distances which regulate the enlargement of small photographs by the solar camera, M. Claudet exhibited last night a number of cartes de visite enlarged by the solar camera, showing the great perfection of proportion and the natural expression which may be imparted to portraits when they are taken in a very short sitting, and with apparatus placed at a proper distance from the persons, as is the case for small pictures.
M. Claudet, in order to show the working of the solar camera, had brought from London and placed in a room adjoining the great hall all the apparatus employed for the enlargement of photographs. Although, of course, unable to produce photographic pictures without the light of the sun, he employed artificial light to throw on a white screen the enlarged photographs, which was sufficient to illustrate the principle of the process. M. Claudet exhibited in this manner pictures of persons enlarged to the size of nature, and some considerably larger from small cartes de visite. The effect was very striking and beautiful.
He also exhibited some photographs, taken by the Comte de Montizon, of all the most curious animals of the Zoological Gardens, and some views of Java, taken by Messrs Negretti and Zambra, with instantaneous views of Paris by Ferrier, showing the boulevards full of carriages and people, as they are in the middle of the day.
One of the principal objects of M. Claudet was to explain how it is possible to trace or draw with pencil on the canvas those enlarged portraits when they are to be painted, and for this purpose how it is even more advantageous to apply the colours not on a surface containing the chemical substances of photographic pictures, but on the usual medium employed by artists without the black shadows forming the delineation of photographs. Several portraits as large as nature drawn by this means and painted on canvas may, we believe, be seen at the International Exhibition in the space allotted to M. Claudet in the British Department of Photographs. These portraits show the advantage of this process, and afford reason to hope that it may be one of the most, useful applications of photography.
The Sydney Morning Herald (NSW, Australia) Saturday 27 December 1862 page 5
http://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper
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