Revealing Hercule Florence, Friend of the Arts: X-ray Fluorescence Analysis

Abstract

The debates about Hercule Florence (Nice, France, 1804-Campinas, SP, 1879) as the pioneer in the discovery of the photographic process were based mainly on his manuscripts, since few of his épreuves photographiques (photographic experiments) survived. Technological advances in the last four decades have allowed some of his impressions à la lumière solaire to be subjected to analysis by non-destructive techniques at the Instituto de Física of the Universidade de São Paulo in 2016. It was then possible to broaden knowledge of the materials and procedures used in 1833 to obtain the first photographs of the Americas, six years before the announcement of the discovery of the technique by Louis Daguerre in France.