The Egg and the Eye: A Brief History of the Albumen Print

The Albumen Print stands as a landmark in the visual history of humankind, a revolutionary process that transformed photography from an elite curiosity into a global language. At its core, an albumen print is a photograph whose image rests upon a delicate, glossy layer of egg white—the albumen—coating a sheet of high-quality Paper. Introduced in 1850 by the French innovator Louis Désiré Blanquart-Evrard, this technique involved coating paper with a salted solution of egg albumen, which was then sensitized with silver nitrate. When exposed to light through a negative, it produced an image of unprecedented sharpness and tonal richness. For nearly half a century, from the mid-1850s to the cusp of the 20th century, the albumen print was the undisputed monarch of photographic media. It was the technology that filled Victorian family albums, documented colonial empires, made celebrities' faces universally recognizable for the first time, and carried images of distant pyramids and untamed wildernesses into the drawing rooms of Europe and America. Its story is a fascinating blend of kitchen chemistry, industrial might, artistic vision, and social change—a testament to how a simple, organic substance could be harnessed to forever alter the way we see the world and ourselves.

Before the albumen print could be born, the world first had to learn how to capture a shadow. For centuries, the dream of permanently fixing an image seen through a lens was a tantalizing fantasy, the alchemical obsession of scientists and artists alike. The principle was known: the Camera Obscura, a darkened room or box with a small hole, could project a perfect, albeit fleeting, image of the outside world onto a surface. The challenge was to make this apparition stay. The first great breakthrough arrived in 1839, a year that cleaved photographic history into a “before” and “after.” In France, Louis-Jacques-Mandé Daguerre unveiled his invention: the Daguerreotype. It was a marvel, a “mirror with a memory.” The process involved polishing a silver-plated copper sheet to a mirror finish, sensitizing it with iodine vapor, and exposing it in a camera. The result was a breathtakingly detailed, one-of-a-kind image directly on the metal plate. To look at a Daguerreotype was to see a ghostly, luminous reality trapped in silver. But it had limitations. Each Daguerreotype was a unique object; it could not be duplicated. It was also expensive, fragile, and the process involved toxic mercury fumes. It was an image for the wealthy, a precious artifact. Simultaneously, across the English Channel, the polymath William Henry Fox Talbot was pioneering a radically different approach. His invention, the Calotype (from the Greek kalos, “beautiful”), was the true ancestor of modern photography. Talbot created a negative image on paper sensitized with silver salts. From this single paper negative, he could then produce multiple positive prints. This concept of a reproducible image was revolutionary. It broke photography free from the constraint of being a unique object. Yet, the Calotype had an aesthetic drawback. The image was formed within the fibers of the paper itself, which softened the details and resulted in a slightly fuzzy, matte, and often painterly appearance. While beautiful and atmospheric, it lacked the crisp, crystalline clarity of its rival, the Daguerreotype. The world of the 1840s was thus presented with a choice: the singular, sharp perfection of the Daguerreotype on metal, or the reproducible, softer beauty of the Calotype on paper. Photography was a medium torn between two identities. What it desperately needed was a process that could combine the best of both worlds: the reproducibility of the Calotype with the sharp detail of the Daguerreotype. The solution, it turned out, lay not in a chemist’s laboratory, but in the humble chicken coop.

The man who bridged this divide was not a celebrated Parisian scientist but a resourceful cloth merchant from Lille, France. Louis Désiré Blanquart-Evrard was an early photography enthusiast, a passionate practitioner of the Calotype process. He was frustrated by the Calotype’s lack of definition and the long exposure times it required. He reasoned, with brilliant intuition, that the paper’s fibrous texture was the culprit. If he could only find a way to seal the paper’s surface, to create a smooth, transparent layer to hold the light-sensitive chemicals, the image would sit on top of the paper, not sink into it. His search for the perfect sealant led him to an ingredient that was cheap, universally available, and possessed remarkable chemical properties: egg white. Albumen, the protein that makes up the white of an egg, could be whipped into a froth, liquefied, and then used to coat paper. When it dried, it formed a hard, smooth, and glossy varnish. It was the perfect, invisible canvas he was looking for. In 1850, Blanquart-Evrard published his method, and it was a model of elegant simplicity. The process began with an almost culinary preparation:

• First, the whites of several eggs were mixed with a salt, typically sodium chloride or ammonium chloride, and then whipped into a stiff meringue.
• This froth was left to stand for several hours, allowing it to settle back into a clear, viscous liquid, with the impurities sinking to the bottom.
• A sheet of fine, thin paper was then carefully floated on the surface of this albumen solution, a delicate operation to avoid air bubbles.
• The paper was hung to dry, creating a sealed, glossy surface.

This “albumenized” paper was now a stable, commercial product that could be prepared in advance and stored. The photographer's job was to sensitize it by floating it on a bath of silver nitrate. A chemical reaction occurred on the surface: the salt (sodium chloride) in the albumen layer reacted with the silver nitrate to form light-sensitive silver chloride, suspended in a fine layer on the surface. After drying in the dark, the paper was ready. When this prepared paper was placed in a printing frame, pressed against a glass negative, and exposed to sunlight, the results were astonishing. The image that emerged was sharp, detailed, and vibrant. The albumen layer had worked perfectly, preventing the image from bleeding into the paper fibers and allowing for a far greater range of tones than the Calotype could ever achieve. The Albumen Print was born. It had the detail of the Daguerreotype and the reproducibility of the Calotype. It was the synthesis that photography had been waiting for, and it would soon conquer the world.

The arrival of the albumen print coincided perfectly with the spirit of the mid-19th century—an age of industrial expansion, burgeoning middle classes, scientific exploration, and a voracious public appetite for images. The albumen print was not merely a technical improvement; it was a catalyst for a visual revolution, democratizing portraiture and bringing the entire world into view.

Blanquart-Evrard himself saw the commercial potential, opening the Imprimerie Photographique in 1851, the world’s first large-scale photographic printing firm. But the real industrialization of the process took root not in France, but in Germany. Dresden became the undisputed world capital of albumen paper manufacturing. Companies like the Dresdner Albuminpapierfabrik operated on a scale that is difficult to comprehend today. The logistics were staggering. These factories consumed eggs by the millions. In its heyday, the Dresden factory alone reportedly used over 60,000 eggs per day. The industry created a vast supply chain, with contracts for eggs extending across Europe. Inside the factories, large rooms were filled with hundreds of women, known as “egg-breakers,” who became astonishingly skilled at separating the whites from the yolks with a single, swift motion. The air was thick with the smell of eggs. While the whites went into the photographic process, nothing was wasted. The yolks were sold to other industries, becoming a key ingredient in everything from cakes and pastries to fine leather tanning, where they were used as a softening agent. The albumen print was thus deeply embedded in the industrial and agricultural economy of its time. The paper itself was of the highest quality, often imported from the mills of Rives in France and Malmedy in Prussia, chosen for its purity and strength. This global network of paper mills, chicken farms, and chemical suppliers fed a machine that coated, dried, and shipped millions of sheets of albumen paper across the world, ready for photographers from San Francisco to Calcutta.

The industrial production of albumen paper made photography affordable and accessible as never before. This affordability gave rise to new photographic formats that would fundamentally change social interactions. The most important of these was the Carte de Visite (visiting card). Patented in Paris in 1854 by André-Adolphe-Eugène Disdéri, the carte de visite was a small albumen print, typically 2.5 x 4 inches, mounted on a piece of thick card. Disdéri's genius was to use a camera with multiple lenses, allowing a photographer to take eight different poses on a single large glass negative. This made the printing process incredibly efficient, and a dozen cartes de visite could be sold for the price of a single, larger portrait just a few years earlier. Suddenly, almost everyone could afford to have their portrait taken. A craze, dubbed “Cardomania,” swept across the globe. People collected and exchanged these small portraits with friends and family, compiling them in specially designed albums that became a centerpiece of the Victorian parlor. These albums were more than just family scrapbooks; they were a visual representation of a person's social circle. But the phenomenon didn't stop there. Photographers began selling cartes de visite of famous people: Queen Victoria, Napoleon III, Abraham Lincoln, Charles Dickens, famous actresses, and decorated generals. For the first time, the face of a celebrity was not a stylized engraving but a photorealistic, intimate portrait that one could own and hold. This collection of famous faces created a new, shared visual culture, a precursor to the celebrity magazines and social media feeds of today. Alongside the carte de visite, the albumen print fueled the popularity of the Stereoscope. This device used two nearly identical albumen prints, taken from slightly different perspectives and mounted side-by-side on a card. When viewed through the stereoscope's lenses, the two images merged into a single, startlingly three-dimensional scene. It was the 19th century's virtual reality. Stereocards transported viewers to the Swiss Alps, the banks of the Nile, or the battlefields of the American Civil War. They were an industry unto themselves, a form of both education and entertainment that made the world feel smaller and more immediate.

The albumen print's fine detail and portability made it the ideal medium for documenting a world that was rapidly being mapped, explored, and colonized. Photographers accompanied expeditions, geological surveys, and military campaigns, using large-format cameras and portable darkrooms to bring back images that astounded the public.

• In Egypt, Francis Frith produced thousands of albumen prints of the ancient monuments, his images so clear that Egyptologists could study the hieroglyphs on them.
• In the American West, photographers like Carleton Watkins and Timothy O'Sullivan hauled their heavy equipment through treacherous terrain to capture the sublime landscapes of Yosemite and the Grand Canyon. Their albumen prints were not just pictures; they were powerful arguments for conservation that helped persuade the U.S. Congress to establish the first national parks.
• During the Crimean War and the American Civil War, photographers like Roger Fenton and Mathew Brady’s team created a stark and sobering record of conflict. While the technology was too slow to capture action, their images of camp life, portraits of soldiers, and the grim aftermath of battle brought the realities of war home with an unprecedented emotional force.

The albumen print was, therefore, more than a medium for family portraits. It was an instrument of science, a tool of empire, and a window through which the 19th-century public constructed its understanding of the wider world.

While albumen paper was an industrial product, the act of making a print remained a delicate craft, a careful dance of chemistry, light, and judgment performed in the dim, amber light of the darkroom. The process was hands-on, and each print bore the subtle signature of its maker.

The photographer would typically buy pre-coated albumen paper from a supplier in Dresden or Paris. The paper came in various finishes, from glossy to matte, and the photographer would choose based on the desired effect. The quality of this paper was paramount; any imperfection in the coating would reveal itself in the final print.

This was the first step performed by the photographer. In a darkroom lit only by a yellow or red safelight, a sheet of albumen paper was carefully floated, albumen-side down, on a tray containing a solution of silver nitrate. It was left there for a few minutes until the albumen layer had absorbed the chemicals, making it sensitive to light. The paper was then hung to dry in complete darkness. This process had to be done shortly before printing, as the sensitized paper was not stable for long.

The albumen print was a “printing-out process” (POP). This meant that the image appeared directly during exposure, without the need for a chemical developer. The photographer would place the glass negative in direct contact with the sensitized paper inside a wooden printing frame. This frame was then taken out into the sunlight. This part of the process was an art form in itself. The photographer would watch the image slowly emerge, the shadows deepening from a pale lavender to a deep bronze. Judging the correct exposure required great skill. The print had to be “over-printed”—made slightly darker than the desired final result—because it would lighten during the subsequent chemical baths. The photographer would often check the progress by opening a small, hinged section on the back of the printing frame in a shaded area, a process known as “proofing.”

Once exposed, the print was brought back into the darkroom for finishing. The raw, untoned albumen print had a rather unpleasant reddish-orange hue and was highly unstable; it would quickly darken and fade if exposed to more light. To solve this, it underwent two crucial chemical baths. First, it was washed to remove excess silver nitrate and then placed in a toning bath. This was typically a solution of gold chloride. The gold would bond to the silver particles of the image, subtly altering their color and making them much more resistant to fading. Toning was what gave albumen prints their characteristic range of rich colors, from warm sepia to chocolate brown and deep eggplant purple. The final color depended on the specific chemistry of the toner and the length of time the print was immersed. After toning, the print was moved to a fixing bath, a solution of sodium thiosulfate, affectionately known as “hypo.” The fixer’s job was to dissolve all the unexposed and un-toned silver salts, leaving only the stable, toned silver image. If this step were not done thoroughly, the remaining salts would darken over time, staining and destroying the image. Finally, the print underwent a long wash in clean water to remove all traces of the fixer.

The final albumen print was on a very thin sheet of paper that would curl and buckle dramatically as it dried. To give it support and presence, virtually all albumen prints were mounted onto a thicker piece of cardstock using starch paste or glue. This mount often bore the photographer’s name and studio address, turning the photograph into a professional object.

For nearly fifty years, the albumen print reigned supreme. It was the visual currency of its time. But no technology is immortal. By the 1890s, the golden age of albumen was coming to an end, undone by its own inherent flaws and the arrival of newer, more advanced photographic processes.

The very substance that gave the albumen print its beauty also contained the seeds of its destruction. Albumen is a protein rich in sulfur. Over the decades, this residual sulfur would slowly react with the silver particles that formed the image, causing them to tarnish, much like a silver spoon. This chemical degradation resulted in a characteristic pattern of decay: the highlights of the print (the whites) would begin to yellow, and the overall image would fade, losing its contrast and depth. Furthermore, the albumen layer itself was fragile. As it aged, it became brittle. Changes in temperature and humidity would cause the thin paper base and the thick card mount to expand and contract at different rates, placing stress on the albumen layer. This often resulted in a fine network of cracks, or “crazing,” appearing across the glossy surface, particularly visible in the dark areas of the image. The very covenant between the egg and the silver was breaking down. While toning with gold helped, the albumen print was ultimately a fugitive medium, its brilliance destined to slowly dim over time.

While the albumen print was showing its age, chemists and manufacturers were busy developing superior alternatives. The 1880s saw the introduction of new types of printing-out papers, most notably collodion and gelatin-based papers. These new emulsions were more stable, offered a wider range of surface textures (from glossy to matte), and could be produced with greater industrial consistency. The final blow came from the Gelatin Silver Print. This process, which would dominate 20th-century photography, used a more stable gelatin emulsion and was a “developing-out” process. The image appeared latently after a very short exposure and was then brought out with a chemical developer. This was far faster and more controllable than waiting for the sun to print out an albumen image. Photographers could now work more quickly and in lower light conditions. By 1900, the albumen print was commercially obsolete. The great factories in Dresden switched to producing the new papers, and the era of the egg in photography was over. The world had moved on to the quicker, more stable, and more versatile chemistry of gelatin.

Though its reign was over, the legacy of the albumen print is immeasurable. The vast majority of surviving photographs from the period between 1855 and 1895 are albumen prints. They are our most direct and comprehensive visual record of that transformative era. They show us the faces of our great-great-grandparents, the construction of the Eiffel Tower, the unspoiled landscapes of a younger America, and the solemn expressions of soldiers far from home. To study the 19th century is to see it through the warm, glossy lens of the albumen print. Today, these prints are precious and fragile artifacts. For conservators in museums and archives, preserving them is a constant challenge. They must be stored in carefully controlled environments to slow the inevitable yellowing and fading. The study of their material properties—the paper, the albumen, the chemistry of the toning—has become a specialized field of science, helping us understand and protect our visual heritage. To hold an albumen print is to hold a tangible piece of history. The faint sheen on its surface is the preserved protein of an egg laid over a century and a half ago. It is a fragile vessel that has carried an image, captured by the light of a long-vanished afternoon, all the way into our hands. It is a testament to a time when art, industry, and a bit of kitchen alchemy conspired to create a new way of seeing, forever changing the relationship between the human eye and the recorded moment.