"Mbe avectator," gprit 19tb, 1851
MR. BEARD'S ENAMELLED DAGUERREOTYPES Mr. Beard, with the aid of his artist, M. Mansion, has effected a valuable improvement in daguerreotype portraits, by combin- ing with the photographic process a sort of enamel painting ; thus rendering the image indelible, and producing a deep-toned pictorial effect approaching that of the miniatures of Thorburn.
The facility and almost instantaneousness with which a strong and faithful likeness, if not a pleasing one, is obtained by means of the daguerreotype, must always cause this process to be resorted to, under any disadvantages ; and whatever tends to lessen the cold and grim aspect of the photographic image on the metal, is an acceptable improvement. The mode of colour- ing in use was so far an advance in the art ; but the new enamelling process of Messrs. Beard and Mansion gives results far more brilliant and satisfactory. Bright scarlet, flesh colour. deep blue, and other pure and intense hues previously unattain- able, are now produced with powerful pictorial effect. The addition of coloured 'backgrounds, and, in short, the covering of the whole plate with colour—the photographic image being to the artist as the "dead colouring" or light and shade of a picture—produces a complete and harmonious ensemble, which only by its extreme minuteness of detail indicates that the whole was not the work of the painter himself.
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