Margam Castle with a man recling on a grass bank

Physical description

A man reclines on a bank at the left of the photograph. He looks towards a series of two-storey buildings, behind which is a skyline of soaring towers, pinnacles and chimneys of a substantial county house. A tall octagonal tower rises in the centre of the buildings. There is a castellated square tower to the right. A driveway runs between the grass bank and the buildings.
There are a number of tiny spots of gold paint to the left and lower edges of the image. The photograph has a red tone (it may have been printed on a dull day with an extended exposure), the lower edge and the right side are faded.

Place of Origin

Wales, Great Britain (photographed)

Date

ca.1845 (photographed)

Artist/maker

Jones, Calvert Richard (Rev.), born 1802 - died 1877 (photographer)

Materials and Techniques

Salted paper print from calotype negative

Dimensions

Height: 18.3 cm, Width: 22.3 cm

Object history note

Educated at Oxford and a mathematician, musician, painter and parson, Calvert Richard Jones was introduced to photography by a cousin of William Henry Fox Talbot, British inventor of the negative/positive process. Subsequently, Jones became one of the few Britons to produce a substantial body of calotype in Britain and abroad. His work stands out in the early development of photography because of his ability to fuse his technical skill with his training as a watercolorist.

Margam Castle, the country house in this photograph, had been built recently by Christopher (Kit) Rice Mansel Talbot (a cousin of W.H.F.Talbot). Calvert Jones was a close friend and neighbour of Kit Talbot; they were contemporaries at Oriel College Oxford and had shared interests. The series of house portraits of Margam may have been made by Jones as a gift for Talbot.

The photograph shows the east side of Margam and the lower height buildings constructed round two service courts. The reclining foreground figure, who gazes towards the castle, lifts this essentially topographical image to an arranged composition. Three wedge-shaped shadows from the buttresses on the nearest building add to the myriad of decorative motifs. A long triangular shadow on the side of the square tower leads the eye back to the figure on the bank and his brightly lit shirt and hand.

Historical context note

Margam Castle was built by Christopher Rice Mansel Talbot between 1830 and 1839, though work was not completed on parts of the house, outbuildings and terraces until 1844. The house was built round a complex of three courtyards. The octagonal tower in the centre of this photograph rises from the centre of the main block. Two service blocks, part of which appear in this photograph, were built on the east side.

Materials

Salted paper

Techniques

Calotype

Subjects depicted

Man; Landscape; Towers; Country house; Buttresses; Castellations

Collection code

PDP