In august 1839, a major historical event, Daguerre's invention of photography, was announced in Paris. These first photographs, Daguerreotypes, were made with complicated process. The image was photographed onto a silver-coated piece of copper and therefore every daguerreotype was, and is today, unique. Stephan Richter's collection of daguerrotypes consists of hundreds of images of superb quality. This book shows that in the first 20 years of this process, photographs of outstanding quality were made, many of them carefully hand tinted by specialists.