Pair of Ambrotype Portraits Framed Mrs. Trizzini Jules Lyon Estimated Date - 1860s

Jules Lyon,also spelled Lion, a black daguerreian and portrait painter born in Paris in 1816, who lived and worked in New Orleans. He is credited as being the first daguerreian in New Orleans, La., and was listed there, as a painter, as early as 1837. His varied artistic pursuits ranged from painting, to lithography and to photography. In 1848, he opened an art school on Exchange Street and in 1865 became a professor of drawing at Louisiana College. Early works of Mr. Lyon have not been easily found which is why Robert DeBlieux's family heirloom portraits of Mr. & Mrs. Jean Baptist Trizzini with their probable oral provenance are particularly interesting.

Ambrotypes, introduced in 1854 by Frederick Scott Archer of Britain and popularized in the United States by James Cutting, are negative images produced on a glass plate and viewed as positive by the addition of a black backing. The glass itself is coated with a thick, sticky liquid called collodion, mixed with sensitizing chemicals. Because sensitivity to light quickly dwindled as the collodion dried, the plate had to be exposed as quickly as possible. By 1856, ambrotypes were being made by almost every major gallery in America, and by many in Europe. (Mace 30).

This portrait has sustained damage and the reverse is being shown

* note although this image is attributed to be by Jules Lyon it is not definitive