Jean Laurent (photographer)

Jean Laurent or, in Spanish, Juan Laurent Minier; sometimes simply J. Laurent (23 July 1816, Garchizy - 24 November 1886, Madrid) was a French photographer who mostly worked in Spain.

He first moved to Spain in 1843, and settled in Madrid. Until 1855, he worked as a box and paper maker, creating luxurious boxes for pastries and marbled paper for book bindings. That year, he became interested in photography from having done work coloring photographs. The following year, he was able to open a studio on the Carrera de San Jerónimo, near the Congress of Deputies, the same location where the British photographer, Charles Clifford, had set up his first studio.

In 1866, together with the Spanish photographer, José Martínez Sánchez, he patented "Leptographic Paper" which produced positives, rather than the negatives produced by the albumen print process. The paper enjoyed some popularity in Spain and France, but was never widely used.

He could boast of the title "Fotógrafo de Su Majestad la Reina" (The Queen's Photographer) from 1861 to 1868. That same year, he opened a store in Paris, devoted exclusively to selling his photographs of Spain and Portugal. One unusual product produced by his company were fans printed with photographs (especially bullfighting scenes) that would unfold like a mosaic.

In 1874, he was commissioned by Baron Émile d’Erlanger to take photographs of the Black Paintings by Francisco de Goya at the Quinta del Sordo. The photographs were later used as a guide by the artist, Salvador Martínez Cubells, to remove the paintings and restore them for public display. This led to Laurent becoming the official photographer for the Museo del Prado, in 1879.

Laurent's son-in-law, Alfonso Roswag Nogier (1833-1900), became his principal partner and carried on the firm's business after Laurent's retirement in 1881. After his death, the archive was acquired by the French photographer Joseph Jean Marie Lacoste Borde (1872-c.1930). When he was called to serve in the war in 1915, the collection was purchased by Juana Roig Villalonga (1877-1941), a Mallorcan, who continued to issue images under the name "Casa Laurent" until the archive was bought again, this time by another photographer, Joaquín Ruiz Vernacci, in 1930.

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