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Adolphe Braun 
A Continental Printing Establishment (M. Braun) 
1874, 23 October 
  
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LL/34813 
  
Published in The British Journal of Photography, October 23, 1874, p.509.
 
A CONTINENTAL PRINTING ESTABLISHMENT. When Mr. Wilson, of the Philadelphia Photographer, visited Europe last spring he devoted two days to the inspection of the famous printing establishment of M. Braun. His account of this visit is described in that journal in the following terms :
 
From the Alps straight to Paris, via Basle, Berne, &c., stopping only at Dornach, on the Rhine, to see Adolphe Braun the great carbon printer and his great manufactory, for such it is, and there is no other just like it or as large in the world. Here the beautiful carbon process, which has been attempted and thrown aside by so many, and which no one in this great country works to any extent, is conducted on an immense scale, and for the two days I was there I found much to interest me in the establishment of M. Braun. The kindness I received from him made me desire to remain two weeks. Photography had already made us familiar with each other's faces, and a long correspondence had made us friends. He employs over one hundred persons constantly, and with him I visited the several departments.
 
Carbon tissue, as you remember, consists of a coating upon paper of gelatine mixed with a pigment, and made sensitive to light by bichromate of potash. It is then printed the same as albumen paper, transferred to a sheet of caoutchouc paper, the picture developed by means of hot water, and then transferred again to the sheet of paper upon which it is to remain permanently.
 
And here we see all these operations in all their details actively engaged in by the hundred or more employees, and be assured it is done on a large scale. Here are the grinding-machines for grinding the pigments, ten in a row, wagging their heads in all directions like so many lunatics who have lost control of their necks, but at the same time accomplishing their purpose; the room where the paper is coated, by allowing it to pass over a tank of the melted gelatine mixture by means of rollers, the paper just taking up enough for the purpose as it passes over; the drying-room, where we see thirty strips of the carbon tissue, fifteen feet long and three feet wide, hung there yesterday evening to dry over night for the consumption of the printers today; the printing-room, where is, indeed, a busy, busy scene men handling negatives, great and small, and tearing off the paper as wanted; the transfer-room, where the caoutchouc paper and the tissue are pressed together, and then, with the aid of the benzine, are separated, and the transfer made; the developing-room, where the great tanks are steaming, and the workmen busy and as attentive as all good printers should be when they tone their prints, for the quality of the carbon print depends much upon the length of time it remains in the warm water; the drying-room, where the prints are dried previous to the second transfer; the mounting-room, where gum arabic is the mountant; the touching-out room, where all defects are obliterated, and where the titles are put upon the pictures, mainly by hand; the press-room, where ponderous presses finish the work; the store-rooms, where the finished pictures are kept; the sample-rooms, where proofs of all the negatives are kept; two skylights, one for copying and the other for portraiture; the offices; the engine-room and engine; and last, but not least, a large basement devoted to the Woodbury process, which M. Braun also uses largely.
 
Photographic printing on such a scale I had never seen before; neither had I ever witnessed such a scene of activity in the interests of photography.
 
M. Braun turns out from two to three thousand pictures every day. Almost everything in the photographic line he makes; but the speciality which has given him fame, and entitles him to the everlasting gratitude of the civilised world, is the reproduction, in indelible form, of the great masterpieces of art which are found in the galleries of Europe. As literature for a thousand years was imprisoned in cloisters, so has art for centuries been imprisoned in the few great museums of Europe. But we have come upon a new dispensation, and it is possible now for every school and college in America to possess faithful copies of the immortal masterpieces of the chisel, the brush, and the pencil, and every boy and girl in their teens may know Phidias, Michael Angelo, Raphael, and the rest of the "great cloud of witnesses," by a sight of their great deeds.
 
How many years had I longed for the privilege of wading through his sample portfolios ! And here I did it, making selection which now not only bring to my mind constantly the original gems among which 1 have been wandering, but also are a continual help and delight to me whenever I can turn aside from work and plunge into the bewitcheries of the beautiful.
 
M. Braun has over 10,000 negatives stored in his works, in strong boxes, as I saw, most systematically numbered and classified, and at his villa near by is a set of duplicates. Some of these negatives on plate glass are of immense weight. I never saw an establishment where all things worked more harmoniously together, or where the results were so beautiful; neither did I ever see a man who seemed so utterly wrapped up in his chosen art as M. Braun. The work he has undertaken alone is a magnificent one, and he has been truly called the "Guttenberg of art." He has placed within the reach of all copies of the works of the old masters, which, heretofore, only the favoured few could go to the galleries of the originals to see.
 
When I think of the days I have spent with him I feel as if I had been with one whose fame is more deserved than that of poet or statesman. It was a privilege not to be overvalued. 
 

 
  
 
  
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