‘A Photographic imitation of etching’ – Cliché-verre

11 Dec 2015: One never quite knows where Talbot’s wide-ranging imagination will take us. The art form of cliché-verre, where a hand-drawn etching is copied onto photographic paper to make the final print is firmly associated in the art historical mind with the mid-19th c Barbizon School, particularly the works of Camille Carot, the most prolific of his …

Diogenes

4 Dec 2015: Sulo Lembinen of the University of Tartu has enthusiastically continued scouring Estonian sources and has already turned up additional information about Matilda Talbot’s 1939 donation of original Talbot prints; this has allowed some refinement of the information in last week’s blog. In public lectures and private conversations I am often asked provocative questions along the …

“Very far away from England” – Maudie & Tartu

27 Nov 2015: Mixed into the boiling pot of disturbing European news in 1934, Estonian readers of the Postimees newspaper must have been pleasantly surprised to see a story about an Englishwoman and her distinguished and inventive grandfather. Henry Talbot’s granddaughter, Matilda (1871-1958), ‘Maudie’ to family and friends, led an incredibly varied and productive life and will certainly …

A Muse in Livery: or, the Footman’s Miscellany

20 Nov 2015: I’ve shamelessly appropriated today’s title from Robert Dodsley (1703-1764), a poet, author and publisher. He knew of what he wrote, for Dodsley had served as a footman in London before trading in his livery for the pen. In earlier times, the footman’s primary responsibility was to trot alongside the master’s or mistress’s carriage, ensuring that …

Three Novembers

13 Nov 2015: November frequently proved to be a significant month for Henry Talbot. The month’s birthstone is topaz, a mineral imbued with virtues of wisdom, courage, serenity and healing, all traits that infuse his November photographs. 1838: Astrantia Major, 13 November Since Guy Fawkes Day was little over a week ago, perhaps we can start with a …

The Slashes of Sarah Anne

6 Nov 2015: I am in Pasadena, California right now, not entirely to visit the legendary Rose Bowl Flea Market for the first time, but rather to attend the annual meeting of The Daguerreian Society. It is always a jolly affair (I’m actually a secret agent who has been inserted into the Society to promote the idea of …

Happy Halloween from Henry

30 Oct 2015: Since Halloween tomorrow is my good friend and colleague Roger Taylor’s birthday, it seemed like an auspicious time to celebrate by turning to one of Talbot’s spookiest images. It is a marvel, but I have never understood the precise origins of its spectacular colour. A Forbidding Stand of Winter Trees Seemingly sprouting up from the …

A wee while in Scotland

23 Oct 2015: There is a saying in Scotland that if you don’t like the weather, wait a wee while and it will change. By October 1844, Talbot’s personal weather was changing for the better. Gone were the storm clouds of 1839, displaced by an ever-increasing mastery of his own new art. Even though he was feeling poorly …

Sunny Skies & Autumnal Evenings in Scotland

16 Oct 2015: Earlier this week (in 1844), Henry Talbot departed from York where he had been participating in the annual meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science. Accompanied by Nicolaas Henneman, once his valet but now the proud owner of his own Talbotype establishment in Reading, the two men must have been in high …

The veneration of an unknown saint

9 Oct 2015: In my periodic visits to Lacock Abbey, Talbot’s great-great-grandson, the late Anthony Burnett-Brown very patiently put up with a lot of odd requests. One was to find a particular piece of ancient painted glass. We searched all the insets to the windows in the Abbey, spotting similar ones but not the particular one that I …

Snap-shooting in the evening sun

2 Oct 2015: While I am normally averse to quoting dictionaries, today let us start with the OED‘s definition of a snapshot: ‘a quick or hurried shot taken without deliberate aim, esp. one at a rising bird or quickly moving animal.’ They establish its first use in conjunction with the misfortune of some pheasants in 1808. It was …