Jules Lion, who was born in Paris in 1810, came to New Orleans as a master lithographer. It was his mastery of daguerreotype, however, that caught the city’s attention.
“His introduction of the daguerreotype process in New Orleans, a precursor to photography, was historic,” the Amistad Research Center states. In 1840, the city “became the second location in the United States to embrace the groundbreaking technology.”
Invented by Louis-Jacques-Mandé Daguerre in 1839, daguerreotype created an image on a copper sheet plated with silver. Only the wealthy could afford to have their portraits taken using this process.
Lion made “daguerreian views of city landmarks, none of which are known to survive,” 64 Parishes states. He “amassed enough daguerreotypes to mount an exhibition at the St. Charles Museum,” the state’s first photography exhibit.
In 1843, Lion returned to making lithographs in New Orleans, Baton Rouge, Donaldsonville, Opelousas, Assumption and St. James parishes. He lithographed such New Orleans scenes as Canal Street and the St. Louis Cathedral. He also taught art at Louisiana College and night school.
Lion “was a master lithographer and one of the most distinguished African American artists in antebellum New Orleans,” 64 Parishes states. “More than 200 of the lithographs he produced from 1837 through 1847” still exist.
Lion, who died in 1866, was listed in directories as a free person of color. However, according to nola.com, Rhode Island College Art History Professor Sara Picard traced his lineage to Jewish parents from France and Bavaria.
Wendy Castenell, an assistant art history professor specializing in African American arts and culture at Washington and Lee University, commended Picard’s research while acknowledging an inconsistency.
“I don’t understand why Lion would have just left a public reference unchallenged,” Castenell said “People were very sensitive of their racial designation” in mid-1800 New Orleans.
For more tales from New Orleans history, visit the Back in the Day archives.
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