Antoine Molteni

From his premises at 11 rue du Coq Saint-Honoré, Molteni ran his enterprise for the coming decades, from what became known as the "Maison Molteni". On 2 April 1817 he drastically expanded the company, together with Joseph Duroni, to include further workshops and stores such as at Palais-Royal. Molteni began working closely with Louis Daguerre in the 1830s, after they were introduced by Alphonse Giroux.

Molteni made the first devices used by Daguerre in 1839, and they continued to work together until the Molteni family moved to the new No. 36 rue Saint-Nicolas in 1846 (which became No. 62 rue du Château d'Eau in 1851). They kept their strong interest in photography, but expanded to include a range of precision instruments. Their factory and warehouses were located on the same street, where their steam engines, rolling mills and metal smelters served the laboratories and manufacturing lines.

The Molteni family also designed and built naval & marine instruments, mathematical, geodesic and measuring devices, photography apparatus and many of the early lighting systems.

Antoine Molteni married Marie Madeleine Alexandrine Sauclières (d. 26 Jan 1855), and the couple had two sons: Pierre Marie Joseph and Louis Jules, and a daughter Joséphine Émilie (married the merchant Jacques Eusèbe Pougeois).