Calvert Richard Jones. Woman & child standing on a balcony, courtyard, Giffords Hall, Stoke by Nayland, Suffolk. Calotype ca.1845-8.

On the balcony of the Dutch gable of this country house, a woman in a crinoline stands holding a baby. She is framed by two partly-open glazed doors. A man leans against the side of the dark archway below, one leg is bent and he studies an object in his hand. A foreground grid of stone slabs leads to the archway. Dark foliage and shadow occupy a similar proportion of the image. These dark areas are mottled: probably they were tiny air bubbles trapped during the sensitising process. There is little fading particularly along the lower edge.

During the 1830s William Henry Fox Talbot invented a way of making paper negatives and from them multiple paper prints. In doing so, he laid the foundations of modern photography. Calvert Jones learned of these developments in 1839 through a neighbour who was a cousin of Talbot. Jones lived in South Wales and he made many photographs there and in the West of England. He also travelled widely, making photographs on the continent. Jones' work stands out in the early development of photography because he was one of the first to apply a schooled artist's eye to the medium.

Jones photographed the houses of friends. This photograph includes a man, a woman and a baby. The image is divided vertically with a predominately light side and dark side of paving and entrance gable and lawn and foliage. the woman and child are framed within the lightest part. The whole image was probably taken across the courtyard from within a second archway, the curve of which can be seen at the top left of the composition.

The house dates from the late 15th century. At the time of the photograph, it was the home of Francis Gresely and his family. major Francis Gresely, an officer ion the East India Company, retired inn 1844 and returned to England. In 1848, he married Mary Kendall, widow of Francis Russell Kendall, who had died in Venice in 1847 (Jones was in Italy during the same [period). Francis and Mary Gresely took up residence at Giffords Hall with three children from Mary's first marriage and one from his. Later Gresely took up photography.

PH.92-1983