Document of the Month Pages
Begun in April of 2012, Document of the Month highlights interesting documents, photographs, and other images from the holdings of the Louisiana State Archives. This page features documents for the current year. To see documents for prior years, click on the links below.
2021 Documents
Jules Lion, Master Lithographer
(1/1/21) Jules Lion was a master lithographer in antebellum New Orleans. Born in Paris, France, around 1810, he came to New Orleans in 1836 or 1837 and produced a series of portraits of Louisianians which are still reprinted today. In 1840, he introduced the new daguerreotype process, the forerunner of photography, but went back to lithography. The 1850 census of New Orleans lists Jules Lyon, age 34, race not indicated, a portrait painter. In his household was Armantine Lyon, age 15, a mulatto. Biographies about him indicate that he was a free man of color. He died at the age of 56 at No. 507 St. John the Baptist Street in New Orleans on the 9th of January 1866. His death certificate, recorded under the name Jules Leon (Orleans Deaths, 1866, vol. 31, p. 124), is on file at the Louisiana State Archives.
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