deep eld?

Abstract. The detailed surface photometry of a sample of early{type galaxies in the Hubble Deep Field is pre-sented as part of a long{term project aimed to settle strong observational constraints to the theories modelling the evolution of elliptical galaxies from the early stages. The sample has been extracted, in the V606 band, from the database provided by the ESO-STECF-HDF Group (Couch 1996). The selection criteria involve the to-tal magnitude, the number of pixels detected above the background level and an automatic star/galaxy classier. Moreover, form visual inspection of the frames, we ex-cluded the galaxies showing unambiguous late{type mor-phology. The analysis of the luminosity and geometrical pro les, carried out on the 162 candidates obeying our selection criteria, resulted in a list of 99 \bona de " early