Uncovering my French Glass Plate Negatives

One day, while browsing a well known auction website, I came across a listing for a box of french glass plate negatives. They looked interesting and so on a whim, I bought them. As with my camera collection, I feel that these plates are little pieces of history which I can help to preserve. When the plates arrived, I was instantly enamoured with the original box. It has information about the original manufacturer of the plates and also the photographs on the plates themselves. Before conducting any further research on the plates and their contents I first needed to digitise them.

Box of Glass Plate Negatives

Digitisation Process

Prior to digitising the plates, I cleaned each one using an Ilford antistatic cloth and while wearing cotton gloves. I cleaned only the glass side to remove any obvious dirt or fingerprints. You should never touch the emulsion side of the plate. The emulsion could be fragile and easily damaged. I carefully digitised the thin glass plates on the Epson Perfection V850 Pro. Plates were placed directly on the glass, I used a rocket blower to remove any final dust and then scanned using Silverfast scanning software.

I scanned each plate with the emulsion facing down at a resolution of 1200 DPI. As with my process for 35mm or 120 negatives, I saved a master version of each negative as a Tiff and then used Lightroom to create a JPEG copy. I did not crop to remove the edges of the glass plates as I feel it is more authentic to show the complete plate. Further information on Digitisation can be found in my previous post on that topic.

The Lumière Family

The black and white box held eighteen 6 and a half centimetre by 9 centimetre thin glass plates. 

The lid reads:

“Société Anonyme des Plaques et Papiers Photographiques A. Lumière & Ses Fils, Lyon Montplaisir. (Limited Company of Photographic Plates and Papers, A. Lumière and Sons, Lyon Montplaisir.) Plaques au Gélatino -Bromure d’Argent Sensibilité Extreme. (Extremely sensitive silver gelatine bromide plates).”

Using google translate revealed that these plates were made by the factory of the renowned Antoine Lumière and Sons in Lyon. The Lumière name is synonymous not only with photography, but also with the history of cinema. In 1870, Antoine Lumière moved his family to Lyon due to the Prussian war. Antoine was a well known painter and photographer and he opened a small business in photographic plate production upon their relocation to Lyon. His two sons, Auguste and Louis, became immersed in their fathers trade and Louis in particular began to try and improve upon the dry plate technology. 

Antoine Lumière

Wet Collodion plates had been introduced in 1851 by Frederick Scott Archer and remained in use until the 1880’s. Using wet plates, the photographer was always against the clock as the entire process, including exposure and processing, had to be completed before the wet emulsion dried. In the 1870’s, Richard Leach Maddox invented the first dry plates using a silver gelatin emulsion. Dry plates became the first economically successful photographic medium as they were easier to use, thus making them available to amateur photographers too. Louis Lumière improved upon the dry plate processing with his blue plates and was so successful that it led to the opening of a new factory in Lyon where they were producing 15 million plates a year by 1894. 

The two Lumière brothers would go on to become known for their Cinematographe, a small and light weight device which was capable of photographing and producing film at a speed of 16 frames per second. Crucially, and unlike the Kinetograph device invented by Thomas Edison, the Cinematographe was capable of projecting the film and allowing more than one person to view it at once. They had created the shared experience of cinema. After their brief dabbling in the moviemaking business, the Lumière brothers turned their attention back to photographic pursuits and the invention of the autochrome plate, the first practical colour photography. The Autochrome Lumière process was patented in 1903. 

Environ des Salins

As well as providing context to where these plates were produced, the box also revealed both the content and the dates of the plates. A small label on the side reads ‘Environs de Salins 1914’. This translates roughly to ‘around Salins’. An online search of areas in France with the name Salins led me to the town of Salins-les-Bains in the Bourgogne-Franche-Comté region in Eastern France. The town owes its name to the saline waters and bedrock of salt and gypsum deposits which shaped its history. The extraction of salt in the town began in the middle ages and continued right up until 1962. In 2009 the historic saltworks were added to the list of UNESCO World Heritage Sites. In order to confirm that this was the town in my glass plates, I compared modern photographs with the images of the town on the plates and tried to pick out buildings that appear in both. In particular I compared the churches which appear as these are often the most distinctive buildings within a town. 

Environs de Salins

This glass plate shows a distinctive domed building almost in the center of the image. This building also appears in an old postcard which states that this is Salin-les-Bains. 

You can see a domed building in the centre of the photo

The same domed building can be seen in this postcard quite close to the foreground

Finally this contemporary photograph of the town shows our beautiful domed building. Thus we can be sure that these plates are depicting images of the town of Salins-les-Bains. Interestingly they are taken in 1914, the year in which World War One began. 

Contemporary photo of Salin-les-Bain showing the domed church

The beautiful domed building is the Notre Dame Liberatrice Chapel, a 17th Century votive chapel dedicated to the Virgin Mary. It was constructed between 1649 and 1662 as a thank you to the Virgin Mary from the inhabitants of the town, for protecting them from epidemics and the thirty years war. The chapel is an oval plan surmounted by a monumental dome which is covered with glazed burgundy tiles. The chapel was integrated into the town hall between 1718 and 1739. 

Glass plate with a view of the town.

The town of Salin-les-Bains lies in a valley known as the Valley of the Furious, which is overlooked by two forts, Fort St. Andre and Fort Belin. Both Fort St. Andre and Fort Belin were rebuilt in 1674 by Vauban (both sites had been occupied by earlier fortifications) the military engineer to King Louis XIV. Fort Saint Andre was also used as a neurological treatment center during World War One while Fort Belin was classified as a historical monument in 1984. These forts helped the town of Salin-les-Bains to resist the Prussian forces during the Franco Prussian War of 1870-1871.

Fort Saint Andre on the right and Fort Belin on the left depicted in an old postcard

Glass Plate of Fort St. Andre on the left

Glass plate of Fort Belin on the left

For those with an interest in cycling, this year's Tour De France passed through Salin-les-Bains during stage 19. 

 A mystery

I can’t say who the individuals in the photographs are, that will likely remain a mystery. What we can surmise from the content of the photographs, is that these individuals may have been just visiting the town of Salins-les-Bains. Perhaps to take in the saline waters for which the town was famous.

Glass plate of a lady at a water fountain.

The nature of the images which capture the beautiful views over the town, points of interest such as the forts, and buildings around the area are suggestive of holiday photographs. Though the image of three people kneeling before a memorial or grave perhaps suggests a connection with the town. Of course we can never know for sure. 

What these beautiful plates do provide, is a glimpse back into the past of a town in France with a unique and interesting history, while the packaging of the plates offers us insight into the Lumière company and glass plate production at that time.

View more of the glass plates here.