Henri Victor Regnault

b. 1810 — d. 1878

Henri-Victor Regnault French, 1810-1878 The work of French calotypist Henri-Victor Regnault (born in Aix-la-Chapelle) remains fervently admired. A physicist and chemist, he taught at the École Polytechnique and Collège de France. Working with his students in 1847, he verified Blanquart-Évrard's advancements, using paper to obtain negatives. He also began making photographs himself. From 1852-71 Regnault served as director of the famous porcelain factory, the Manufacture de Sèvres. While his tenure there was marked by considerable displeasure with his highly scientific approach, his artistic style seems to have flourished through photography. His landscape views and portraiture, radically simple in conception and deeply emotional in tone, seem polar opposites of the highly finished, ornate work he produced in his official position. Regnault was at the center of a serious group of amateur photographers in Sèvres, which included Louis-Rémy Robert and E. Béranger. He was a founding member of the Société héliographique (1851) and the Société française de photographie (1854), which he served as president from 1855-68. He was also made an honorary member of the Royal Photographic Society in London. His work is known to have been collected by other photographers, including John Stewart, the British photographer whose own group was based at Pau in southern France. Regnault eventually left photography after the death of his son in the Franco-Prussian war and the war-related destruction of his laboratory in Sèvres. T.W.F.