Karol Beyer was 21 years old when the invention of daguerreotype was announced in Paris on August 19, 1839. He opened his first atelier in Warsaw six years later and started a new walk of life which he considered his cultural and social mission. In over thirty years of his professional activity he created the pantheon of his Polish contemporaries, documented social and political tensions before the January Uprising, captured the latest buildings in Warsaw as well as the Warsaw street, both in its everyday and festive character (processions, protests). The photographs presented in the album come from the collection of the National Museum in Warsaw.