first photo portrait

It's not very pretty this blue-green tones portrait (left) but so important in the great history of photography?

There is a simple inscription M. Huet, 1837 above a signature, that of Louis Daguerre... because yes, this portrait is a daguerreotype - a small glass plate that is not 6 cm high and barely 4 cm wide. 

And the late authentication at the end of the 20th century is all the more meticulous since, until then, the first portrait (right) would have been made by Robert Cornelius (1809-1893), an American photographer born in the Netherlands, interested in chemistry. He was working on improving the daguerreotype when he took this portrait of himself in front of the family shop in October 1839.

In January 1838, Daguerre wrote to Isidore Niépce who tried to make portraits, one of which is quite successful - I don't know if it is the one that illustrates this article, but it is one of them.

I didn't find the auction price of this portrait which was estimated between 600,000 and 800,000 EUR, but I wondered why it had disappeared from circulation?  Well, simply because Mr Constant Huet (although he seems to have smuggled Daguerre into the Museum of Natural History) was an engraver and ended up being afraid that his profession would disappear. He published in the press a drawing showing Daguerre as a stone-eater (the symbol is quite telling) - who knows why - but they weren't really buddies anymore.