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Antoine Claudet
Society of Arts Silver Medal. Presented to Antoine Francois Jean Claudet - Society of Arts Silver Medal, by William Wyon at the Royal Mint, London
1850
Medal
Private collection of Jason David Wright
LL/113010
1850 Society of Arts Silver (massive 52mm of solid silver) Medal, Presented to Antoine Francois Jean Claudet - Society of Arts Silver Medal, by William Wyon at the Royal Mint, London, dated 1850, medal with Busts facing left of Scientia superposing Mercury border is a band of alternating thistle, rose, and shamrock, engraved to the rear 'ANTOINE FRANCOIS JEAN CLAUDETT, 1850, For his Machines for Cutting Glass‘ Antoine François Jean Claudet (August 18, 1797 – December 27, 1867), was a French photographer and artist who lived and worked in London, he produced some of the best daguerreotypes of the Victorian era, it has been estimated that he made around 1,800 images every year with subjects including Royalty, Michael Faraday, Charles Babbage plus many other famous Victorians. Antoine Claudet was born in Leyon, France in August 1797 at the end of the French Revolution. He moved to Paris when he was 21 and worked for his uncle at a bank. While in Paris he met and married a French woman whose family had moved to England. In 1825 Claudet was given the job of co-director by his wife’s nephew, George Bontemps of M. Ponces Grimbolt’s glass works just outside of Paris. Then in 1823 he moved to 89 High Holborn, London to import glass shades and sheets manufactured back in France. It was through this introduction to the glass industry that allowed Claudet to demonstrate his creative skills in inventing. In 1833 he invented a machine for cutting cylindrical glass. It was for this invention he was finally awarded, in 1853, this Society of Arts Silver medal by Price Albert and elected a fellow of the Royal Society. In 1839, having heard about Louis Daguerre’s photographic discovery, Claudet travelled to Paris and took lessons on the process from Daguerre himself. Claudette learnt the whole process and bought a licence for the then impressive sum of £200.00, Claudet was the first person in England to be able to perform the Daguerre process. In 1877, a year after Claudet’s death his entire studio was destroyed by fire with the loss of 20,000 negatives, daguerreotypes and prints. Interestingly this medal shows heat damage with some bleeding of the silver due to exposure to high temperature. It is safe to assume that this medal was kept at Claudet’s studio and was caught in the fire. The medal is, perhaps, the only surviving personal effect of Antoine Francois Jean Claudet known to exist.
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