The William Henry Fox Talbot Catalogue RaisonnÉThe complete corpus of the works of the Victorian inventor of photography on paper

About the project

The Catalogue seeks to put the entire corpus of the approximately 20,000 known surviving Talbot negatives and prints online.

On 31 January 2019, we moved from the 'developmental'phase to the'delivery' phase. However, new material is being added periodically. Please help contribute to this project.

From the blog

From May 2015 to January 2019 a new blog was posted every Friday. Covering a wide range of basic and specialized topics, these were normally written by the Director but many were contributed by Guest Editors. The topics were often unpredictable. The blogs are archived and fully searchable. From now on, blogs will come out on a periodic unscheduled basis. You can subscribe to a reminder if you wish.

Other Talbot resources

Internal resources include biographies, bibliographies and case studies. The Catalogue is also being linked to a wide range of external resources in the study of the early history of photography, including correspondence, conservation and historical studies.

The initial publication is completed!

On 31 January 2019, on schedule, the project transitioned from development to delivery. This means that new material will be added periodically, not continually. Any questions or suggestions please contact Prof Schaaf at larry.schaaf@bodleian.ox.ac.uk

Where are you now?

Talbot's originals are moving around all the time through traditional auctions, booksales, ebay and private transactions. Do you know the new home of these? (we won't publish your identity without your permission - we just want to keep track of them!)

A Little Bit of Magic Realised
William Henry Fox Talbot
January 1839