Biography

Discussion

In the studies of photographic history conducted by Josef Maria Eder, R. Lécuyer, and Helmut and Alison Gernsheim, Asser is one of the few nineteenth-century Dutchmen mentioned as a contributor to the development of photography. Asser’s fame is based on the invention of photolithography with transfer paper, which he made in 1858. Just as valuable is his photographic oeuvre dating from the period prior to this. Asser’s photographic legacy consists of nine daguerreotypes and approximately 200 photographs on paper compiled in four albums. They show the kinds of subjects that interested an amateur photographer in the Netherlands during the 1840s and ’50s

Based on the daily journals of Eduard and his elder sister Netje—carefully preserved by I.H. van Eeghen—a picture emerges of the Asser children’s broad and diverse education and formation. Eduard wrote poems and theatrical plays and was a fervent theatregoer. He also appeared as an actor and a director in plays put on for the family. In addition, Asser received his first lessons in drawing and painting at a very young age. At the age of fourteen, he won an award for his entry to an exhibition in The Hague. As a boy he visited the Trippenhuis (the precursor of the Rijksmuseum), where he could see the paintings on display there. In 1829, Asser began receiving lessons on a highly frequent basis from the history and portrait painter Jan Adam Kruseman. Through him, Asser came into contact with a variety of artists. Like his teacher, Asser devoted most of his attention to portrait painting. He also learned about lithography. Besides drawing and painting, he also was interested in physics.

As the story went in the family—recorded by S. Rood in 1923—Asser purchased cameras and supplies in Paris, at a time ‘when the Daguerreotype had scarcely just been invented’. Nothing can be said regarding the exact date when this occurred, nor is anything else known about Asser’s introduction to photography. Preserved in the Asser family’s legacy are nine daguerreotypes in the 1/6 plate format (7.0cm x 8.3 cm). Several portraits are dated 1848, 1849 and 1850, which would indicate that Asser began taking daguerreotypes no earlier than the second half of the 1840s. It is plausible that another Dutch daguerreotypist, Willem Baron van Heeckeren, was the first to undertake photographic experiments several years prior.

Most daguerreotypes were shot in the garden of the house on the Singel, with a shed of wide wooden planks serving as a background. Appearing in a number of these photographs is Euphrosine Oppenheim, Asser’s wife. His children, nephews, nieces, and his wife’s brothers, are also portrayed. Once Asser switched from the daguerreotype to negative-positive processes in the early 1850s, he began devoting more attention to the composition of his portraits. It was in this genre that he ultimately achieved the greatest profundity. A studio was set up in the attic of the house on the Singel, where he asked his models to pose. Taking advantage of the light that entered from above and a neutral background, he accentuated the spatiality of the forms. While emphasis was placed on the pose and the clothing, the facial expression was most important. The portraits are remarkable for their strong expression, achieved by minimal means, somewhat comparable to Nadar’s style of portraiture. Asser’s albums also included a number of photos by the then internationally esteemed photographer from Amsterdam, Louis Wegner. Asser’s work contrasted greatly from Wegner’s portraits, where the emphasis lay more on external appearance and status. Equally remarkable is Asser’s series of portraits depicting his stage-acting children and their friends from 1856. This same series of children’s portraits in theatrical costumes as well includes a group portrait taken outdoors.

Asser was one of the first Dutchmen to photograph himself. One album which bears the following text on its title page: ‘Fastes et néfastes de la Photographie – Vie historique et Philosophique d’un Photographe – par Lui-Même, recueillie et mise en ordre par son Piston Damné’ (‘Positives and Negatives of the Photography—The Historical and Philosophical Life of a Photographer—by Himself, Collected and Ordered by his Piston Damné’). The album itself contains a series of six self portraits with Asser shown in various frames of mind, which he describes underneath with text written in pencil. ‘Méditant une perfidie’ (‘Contemplating a deception’) is the caption accompanying the first photograph. ‘Déclaration sincère’ (‘Sincere statement’) shows Asser with his hand on his heart. The third photograph is taken not from the side, but from the front. His posture and expression are the same: ‘Autre déclaration non moins sincère’ (‘Another statement no less sincere’). In the next self-portrait, Asser raises his eyebrows in fear: ‘Effrayé de tant de déclarations et de tant de perfidies’ (‘Frightened of so many statements and so many deceptions’). The fifth photograph shows the effect of fear: ‘Etat maladif—conséquence’ (‘Sickly state—consequence’). In the final photo, Asser is seen having returned to his normal state, with the caption ‘Revenu a 1’état normal’. While the series reveals various imperfections in technique and content, it is a noteworthy experiment. It recalls studies of physiognomic expressions, which had long been a tradition in drawing by this time. Henry Peach Robinson’s photographic studies of 1857, in which the emphasis lies more on the pose than physiognomy, are comparable to Asser’s portraits only to a degree. Asser’s series appears to have had another purpose, possessing more the character of a self-enquiry—a photographic autobiography, as he described it on the title page. Yet he was not consistent in working out his idea. In the end, it became an album with what appears to be a random collection of portraits, still lifes, and paper negatives: perhaps the result of his first experiments with paper and collodion photography. The photographs of facial expressions are a precursor of the series that Oscar Gustave Rejlander made twelve years later, in 1872, for The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals by Charles Darwin.

In addition to this series, Asser’s albums included other portraits of himself. His friend E. Bour, as well an amateur photographer, may possibly have taken a number of these photographs. The two men produced portraits of each other outdoors and posed in front of Asser’s collection of physics instruments.

The still life is a regularly recurring theme in Asser’s albums. The widest array of objects was taken from the attic of the house on the Singel. He photographed items related to hunting, decorative porcelain vases, flower arrangements, physics instruments, frames, or children’s play toys. The still lifes are characterised by an excessive variation of objects, with the composition seemingly of secondary interest. The contrast with the austerity of his portraits is substantial. It is as if Asser was primarily fascinated by the wealth of forms and textures, as well as the possibilities that photography offered to ‘describe’ these aspects precisely. This fascination is reminiscent of William Henry Fox Talbot’s praise for the speed and precision of the photographic description. In The Pencil of Nature, Talbot compared—with a study of his cabinet containing Chinese porcelain as an example—the capturing of an image photographically with the tediousness of a verbal description. Asser’s still lifes were more like brisk studies than well-conceived compositions.

Photography itself was also the subject of Asser’s still lifes on occasion. A variety of photographic attributes were featured in several of his compositions: a stereoscope of the Brewster type, a lens, a copy of a photography magazine (Revue de la Photographie, ‘Review of Photography’), one of the photo albums with ‘Photographie E.I. Asser’ embossed in gold, as well as photographs (loose or in frames) by Asser himself, Louis Wegner, and others.

Many photographers take their first shots from the window of their own home. In this regard, Asser was no exception. Living on the Singel, his view looked out onto the Munt Tower and the entrance to the Reguliersbreestraat. He photographed this view, as well as the complex of roofs, roof tiles, and chimneys that could be seen from his attic window.

Just as the cityscapes taken by the British photographer Benjamin Brecknell Turner (1857) and the Dutch photographers J.A. van Eijk, Jacob Olie, and Pieter Oosterhuis, Asser’s cityscapes of Amsterdam date from the 1850s. The photographs by Asser—who incidentally began with paper photography in the early 1850s—are perhaps the earliest. He also took shots outside Amsterdam, including views of the Pavilion in Haarlem and the town Bennebroek. In comparison with his excessive still lifes, the compositions in Asser’s cityscapes are serene. Nevertheless, it was a genre he rarely practiced.

Asser’s love for the daguerreotype was short-lived. He worked on paper negatives for a long time, thereafter on glass plates. These photographs were possibly the result of a collaboration with his friend E. Bour, who often appears in Asser’s photos. The two became members of the Société Française de Photographie (‘French Society of Photography’) at the same time in 1855. In all probability, the two men worked closely together, as well collaborating on photographic experiments. When considering his educational background, Asser probably focussed more on the choice and lay-out of the subject as well as the image’s aesthetic aspects, while Bour —a paint dye manufacturer—was perhaps responsible for the chemical aspects. Nothing is known about the duration and intensity of the two men’s collaboration, however, nor about the photographic work that Bour did on his own.

Judging from the dimensions of his prints, we may conclude that Asser used at least three different cameras: a small-format camera for one-sixth plates, a larger format of 20×25 cm for outdoor shots, and one or two cameras for circa 12×16 and 13×21 cm plates. All of the photos differ from one another in dimension: they were either cut or trimmed.

The portraits on paper were likely all made on wet collodion plates; the larger outdoor shots, by contrast, appear to have been taken with dry plates. In Asser’s photographs of streets and buildings, little life is to be observed: this might indicate long exposure times—a characteristic property of dry plates. For outdoor shots, this process was simply most practical, as one could prepare the plates a day in advance and develop them at one’s ease upon returning home. Accordingly, there was no need for a darkroom on location. In the Netherlands, photographers such as J. A. van Eijk, P.J. Kaiser, as well as the photographers Munnich and Ermerins in Haarlem, worked with this process. Besides a variety of formats and photographic processes, Asser also applied various kinds of printing techniques and paper. Especially in the 1850s, photographers saw a unique opportunity to express their artistic endeavours through the chemical composition of both the negative and positive light-sensitive materials. In any event, Asser relied on both the salt print and the albumen print. In addition, a large number of the prints found in his albums have a matte texture. These were likely to have been produced on starched paper, which was used by various photographers during these years. One series of photographs deserves special mention, by no means because of its high quality but rather based on another trait: a thickly applied layer of varnish covering the image like a veil and frequently displaying small, undesirable cracks. These may very well be examples of a working method published in 1858 in the Bulletin de la Société franqaise de Photographie (‘Bulletin of the French Society of Photography’), in response to a statement made by Asser himself. In 1856, he had discovered a method to make prints on paper prepared with potassium bichromate. Asser professed he was able to improve the limited contrast range of this paper by using a paper sort that was unglued, as opposed to one that was glued. After treatment with iron vitriol and gallnut acid, the image was immersed in a bath of gelatin and finally varnished. According to the Bulletin‘s editorial staff, the results were: ‘assez vigoureuses, mais (…) les blancs ne paraissent pas suffisamment réserves’ (‘pretty strong, but (…) the whites do not seem to be sufficiently preserved’). It is not possible to determine whether all of the photographs covered with a layer of varnish that appear in Asser’s albums were produced according to this process. He may possibly have used a varnish to keep his photographs from fading too quickly.

The lack of stability when it came to paper photographs was something that annoyed Asser from the start. One known remedy consisted of a treatment using gold chloride, which also strengthened the contrasts. Asser, however, believed it was this costly form of processing that was standing in the way of photography’s overall acceptance.

For Asser, photography was more than just an artistic hobby. He also became interested in the development of methods to reproduce photos on a bigger scale. In the 1850s, numerous photographers—and lithographers—were hoping to discover processes for photomechanical reproduction. In 1855, Louis-Alphonse Poitevin and Lemercier developed a photolithographic process in Paris. Dutch researchers were also putting effort into this area. At the Internationale tentoonstelling van photographie en heliographie (‘International Exhibition of Photography and Heliography’) of 1855 hosted by the artist’s society Arti et Amicitiae, H.C. Schuyt tot Castricum presented a photolithographic cityscape of The Hague. Through his experimentation with starch and potassium bichromate, Asser had discovered that the latter substance could be made insoluble and water-repellent. Properties that were similar to those of lithography (in Dutch ‘steendruk’, literally ‘stone print’) could not possibly have gone unnoticed by Asser, as he had worked with this technique in the past. This experience—and perhaps also the appeal of the award pledged in 1856 by the French nobleman, the Duke of Luynes, for the discovery of a practical photo-mechanical process—had inspired him to investigate photolithography and to continue building upon the knowledge existing at that time. In 1859, he also discovered a valuable variant that was as well published in the Bulletin de la Société Française de Photographie, this time without editorial commentary. An image with potassium bichromate applied to a moist, unglued, but starched paper retains the ink applied to it. This inked paper image subsequently functions as the printing form, which is transferred onto a lithographic stone that in turn again serves as a printing form. The image on the stone appears in reverse from left to right, with subsequent prints therefore made in the desired direction. This method of reproduction has gone down in history as the ‘Procédé Asser’ (‘Asser Process’), otherwise known as photolithography with transfer paper.

Asser was nevertheless unable to patent his invention in the Netherlands due to the absence of trustworthy patent legislation. For this reason, he filed a patent request in Belgium, which was subsequently granted. The lithographers Simonau and Toovey in Brussels acquired the rights in Belgium. During the 1870s, the company Wegner and Mottu is known to have made photolithographic art reproductions in the Netherlands using Asser’s process. In the meantime, Asser worked at perfecting his method, which turned out to be well suited for reproducing lines but less successful when it came to half tones. He regularly submitted photolithographic prints to exhibitions in Amsterdam, Paris, and Brussels. As late as 1892—just two years prior to his death—Asser founded a company to exploit his reproduction techniques, called the ‘Naamloze Vennootschap Maatschappij voor Photo – litho – en Zincografie Procédé Mr. E.I. Asser te Amsterdam’ (‘Company for Photo–Litho–and Zincographic Process E.I. Asser of Amsterdam’). Asser donated his medals, certificates, and a printing press to the company with the intention of setting up a small photolithographic museum.

Although Asser was a member of the editorial staff of the Tijdschrift voor Photographie (‘Journal of Photography’) from the time of its founding in 1864, it appears his involvement can best be described as a secondary activity. In the beginning, his articles appeared in the magazine on a regular basis. All centre on the invention that had kept Asser preoccupied during these years, specifically, photolithography. In 1865 and 1866, his contributions appear far less frequently. In 1865, he judged entries to the Internationale tentoonstelling voor photographie (‘International Exhibition of Photography’) at the Paleis voor Volksvlijt (‘Palace of Industry’) in Amsterdam on the magazine’s behalf. From the time of the magazine’s discontinuation in 1867, it is harder to trace Asser’s activities as a member of the magazine’s management board. The intensity of his contact with other members of the editorial board and the photographers J.A. van Eijk en P.J. Kaiser is also not known. Based on the contributions that these men made to various magazines, one gets the impression they were more active than Asser in the areas of organisation and management.

A critical contribution in the judicial realm, however, is noteworthy. In an article entitled ‘Eigendomsregt bij voortbrengselen der photographie’ (‘Ownership Rights with Products of Photography’), published in the Tijdschrift voor Photographie in 1865, Asser considers whether the law of 1817 prohibiting the reproduction and sale of ‘original texts and artworks’ by means of printing was as well applicable to photography. He was especially searching for an answer to the question of whether ‘the photographer could reproduce the photograph of another [photographer] by means of photography without being penalised’. The first question to be answered was ‘whether photography represents an art or an industry’. Asser formulated his response as follows: ‘I view photography as a scientific branch of industry that can be practiced with taste to a greater or lesser degree, and artistic feeling to a greater or lesser degree’. When defined as such, Asser could arrive at no other conclusion: the law did not apply to photography. Nevertheless, this seemed wrong to him. As a consequence, he decided to end his article with an appeal for the law to be revised: ‘… considering that the artistic feeling plays such an important part in the success of a photographic representation when viewed from an artistic point of view, the ownership of the representation that comes into being through this artistic feeling should not suffer from the sustained existence of an inadequate legislation.’ In the Netherlands, it was not until 1912 that the right of authorship was legally regulated.

Eduard Asser is one of the few early Dutch photographers to leave behind a substantial oeuvre. The international recognition he received for the invention of photolithographic transfer paper has unjustly pushed his photographic work to the wayside. The ‘painterly’ tradition is very much present in his oeuvre, comprising portraits, still lifes, group portraits, and cityscapes. Among the photographs exclusively circulated among members of Asser’s family back in his day, the portraits are most significant. In this area of photography, he managed to achieve a relatively high level of quality through his early formation in drawing and painting. Notwithstanding, Asser’s attitude towards the medium was unassuming: he photographed first and foremost as an amateur. In practicing his hobby, he was at the same time self-reflective. His attempts at the photographic autobiography, self-portraits, and photographic paraphernalia in his still lifes demonstrate that he was greatly inspired by photography as a means of self-expression.

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