Like his colleague Belloc, New York-born Alexis-Louis-Charles Arthur Gouin started off as a miniaturist painter. However, soon after the discovery of photography, he became one if its pioneers. He contributed his photo plate polishing machine and a light meter to the number of photographic inventions that were feverishly being developed in England, France and Germany. He gained great recognition in the mid-19th century with his tastefully erotic daguerreotypes. The plasticity of post-production coloration and the sensual handling of the incarnate reveal his painting studies at the Académie