File:Le parthenon à Athènes - daguérreotype Lerebours ; Imp. de Bougeard ; Martens, sc. LCCN2002708912.jpg

English: Title: Le Parthenon à Athènes

/ daguérreotype Lerebours ; Imp. de Bougeard ; Martens, sc.

Abstract/medium: 1 print : etching and aquatint, color, with hand-coloring.

Colored version of an engraving of the first photograph of the Parthenon. Print of an engraving based on a daguerreotype photograph taken by Pierre-Gustave Joly (Pierre-Gustave Joly de Lotbinière) in October 1839. Engraved by Frédéric Martens. First published in Excursions daguerriennes by Noël Paymal Lerebours in 1841. This colored version was published in Excursions daguerriennes, Paris, 1842, plate 22.

Excerpts from the accompanying text, written by Pierre-Gustave Joly, the photographer, published in Excursions daguerriennes (the original text in French is in the public domain, like the image):
"This view was taken in the autumn of 1839 ; I mention it, because it is the first time that the image of the Parthenon is fixed on a plate by the ingenious method of Daguerre, and because each year could bring new changes to the look of those famous ruins: a catastrophe could collapse them tomorrow, or a friendly and generous hand could raise those marbles scattered on the ground, and restore into an imposing whole what was the most beautiful of temples. [...] A mosque occupies a part of the interior, it is now used to store the precious debris found during the excavations of the Acropolis. Once, there had been a gunpowder magazine on the same spot, it caused, when it exploded, the collapse of a large part of the temple. On the columns, many white spots can be seen, they are chips of marble removed by bullets and cannonballs during the last war."