The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1841-10-08 00:00:00

IS NOW OPEN.

The Corporation of Liverpool having granted the site of
the late OBSERVATORY, ST. JAMES'S WALK, a neat and
elegant Building has been erected thereon, in which the
PHOTOGRAPHIC APPARATUS, the discovery of which
is ranked among the greatest scientific achievements of the
present age, is now in DAILY OPERATION.
THE PRICE FOR EACH PORTRAIT, INCLUDING
A FRAME, IS ONE GUINEA___

JOHN RELPH, Manager,

The Invention was recentl introduced into England, at
the ROYAL POLYTECHNIC INSTITUTION, LONDON ; and
the following are a few extracts from the leading. Journals
relating to its merits :

(From the Times.)

THE PHOTOGRAPHIC MINIATURES.—The principle has
been so far perfected as to be almost incapable of further
improvement. The novelty attendant upon the fact of
being furnished in the short space of five seconds with a
more correct miniature likeness than the most accom-
plished artist could paint on ivory, after days of laborious
study, •coupled with the fineness of the weather, drew
together a host of curious fashionables, at the Poly.
technic Institution, so many, indeed, that notwithstanding
the short period of time occupied in the operation, the room
was crowded for hours together, by parties anxiously waiting
their turn. The apartment appropriated for the magical
process—for so it may be termed—is well calculated for the
object desired, being on the highest story of the institution.
From the roof, which is constructed of blue glass, of about
a quarter of an inch thick, a very powerful light is obtained,
and it is so ingeniously contrived as to revolve with the sun.
In a portion of the room, nearly in the centre, an elevated
seat is placed, on which the party whose likeness is to he
taken sits, with his head reclined backwards. In this posi-
tion the sitter is told to look into a glass box, in an opposite
direction, about five from him, in which is placed the plate
to be impressed with the portrait. Having done so for a few
seconds, he descends, and in a few minutes afterwards a
likeness is presented to him. The likenesses which we saw
were admirable, and closely true to nature, beauties and de-
formities being alike exhibited ; therefore those who are
ashamed of their personal appearance had better keep from
the influence of photography.

(Prom the Morning Chronicle.)

When we formerly described this process, the time requi-
site for taking a portrait was, generally speaking, about four
minutes ; but in consequence of the great improvements that
have been made, the time has been reduced to about five se-
conds on a clear day ; but during cloudy dull weather the
operation may require from a minute and a half to two mi-
nutes.

The portraits taken by this means are really extraordinary
as likenesses ; they are true to nature, for nature here is her
own delineator. The features are admirably marked out and
delineated, and the likenesses at first sight are so extraordi-
nary, that they are really startling.
(From the Morning Advertiser.)

PHOTOGRAPHIC LIKENESSES.—One of the most inter-
esting sights it is possible to conceive is now attracting
crowds daily to the Polytechnic Institution, Regent-street.
The patentee has christened it the " photographic mode of
taking likenesses." By this process, in the incredibly short
space of tive seconds, the likeness of any individual is taken
down on a piece of metal, and the portrait is a perfect fac-
simile of the sitter. It is nature herself that is called in to
be the artist, and her performance is truly astonishing,
leaving immeasurably behind it everything that human skill
could effect

(From the Morning Herald.)
PHOTOGRAPHIC PORTRAITS.—We were present on Sa-
turday at the exhibition of the extraordinary process of
taking portraits by the reflecting apparatus, lately patented,
and now for the first time brought before the public. By the
photographic progress, perfect likenesses are taken. in the
short space of from ten to five and twenty seconds ! We
say perfect, because the prepared plate on which the objects
is reflected must of necessity produce a perfect transcript of
that object. The operation, therefore, being thus unerring,
the fault of even the slightest failure in likeness can only
be attributable to the person sitting, which, of course,
may result from an assumed or unnatural position.
Although the exhibition has been only of a private character,
and of some two or three days, we understand that it has
been visited by all the parties possessing the privilege.
Among other influential personages present on Saturday, we
noticed the Earl of Shaftesbury, who expressed his surprise
and gratification at the extraordinary invention.

(From the Court JOurnal.)

PHOTOGRAPHIC LIKENESSES.—We attended yesterday
at the private view given by the patentee of the reflecting ap-
paratus at the Polytechnic Institution, by which photographic
likenesses are taken, and with the greatest accuracy, in a
period varying from five to twenty seconds. We were de-
lighhted with the exhibition.
(From the Morning Post.)

The patentee of this invention has adopted the principle of
giving these " reflections" to the public at a very moderate
cost, compared to the ordinary price of miniatures, trusting
for his return to a general desire to possess them, which he
anticipates must be felt by all persons who would cherish the
best memento of a dear friend or relative.

(From the Courier.)

" Every line, every touch in the pictrue produced is from
the pencil of nature, without flattery or fallacy."
(From the Weekly Dispatch.)
•

PHOTOGRAPHIC PORTRAITS.:--We took' 'an opportunity
on Monday cf again visiting the Polytechnic Institution, to
witness the astonishing manner in which portraits are taken
by the photographic process. The room was crowded with
nobility and gentry, among whom we noticed Lord Aber-
deen, and several other persons of rank, each of whom, in
the warmest terms, expressed their delight and astonishment
at the rapidity with which the portraits of different gentle-
men were taken, and the extreme fidelity in the execution.
It is, in fact, impossible for the portraits to be any thing
short of a complete copy of nature.
(From the Observer.)

PHOTOGRAPHIC PORTRAITS.—The appearance of the
miniature thus produced is that of a mezzotint engraving,
the likeness being no question of opinion, but a plain matter
of fact, for nature in this, as in other similar operations,
makes "no mistake." There is such subtilty of touch and
tone in the likeness as might fill a Vandyke or a Lawrence
at once with delight and despair. Altogether this is a most
wonderful and extraordinary exhibition. Those who in por-
traiture are fond of being " flattered," will certainly not
patronise the photographic method of taking likenesses ; but,
on the other hand, they who want the real thing, and we
presume them to be the majority, will unquestionably spend
a guinea with great willingness in the production of a minia-
ture portrait which their fathers and mothers, wives, sisters,
and brothers may " swear to." Separate rooms are also
appropriated to ladies and gentlemen, and a female attendant
waits upon the former to assist in arranging the dress so as
to produce the most desirable pictorial effect.
(From the Naval and Military Gazette.)

PHOTOGRAPHIC PORTRAITS.—For V some time it was
doubted whether Photography could ever be brought to
operate satisfactorily on the human face and form, so as to
enable the artist to take an unerring and effective likeness,
the slightest motion inevitably destroying the picture in its
progrees. Ingenuity, perseverance, and repeated experiments,
have at length completely triumphed over the difficulty ; and
miniature portraits, infallibly faithful, are now taken, from a
sittting of from five to twenty seconds ; the time varying
according to the intensity of light.
(From Bell's Weekly Messenger.)
EXTRAORDINARY FACT.—MINIATURE PICTURES.—It IS
bodily and personally the individual who is the sitter. It is
as much so, as lie sees himself in the most accurate looking
lass, but with this difference, that the Photographic likeness
is the image as if it were removed from the surface of the
mirror, and rendered perpetual. It is an everlasting memo-
rial of the man at the moment it is taken—and therefore the
most precious gift that can be given to those who love him
while livii g, and will cherish his memory when dead. It is
a discovery, which not only saves the sitter from the tedium
of being fixed in the same position for many an hour for his
likeness, (for this is accomplished in the sixth part of a mi-
nute)—but it affords to artists themselves the surest guide
for copying other likenesses, whether in miniature, or in oil
paintings as large as life.
Specimens may be seen, and Orders received, at Mr. LA-
CEY'S REPOSITORY or ARTS, 100, 80ld-street.