Image of Gallery in South Kensington
Request to view at the Prints & Drawings Study Room, level F , Case X, Shelf 353

Summer House at Margam

Photograph
ca.1845 (photographed)
Artist/Maker
Place of origin

A small classical building with a central arch and four empty niches. A couple are posed in the foreground on the right.
Small amount of fading to thge corners of the image.


Object details

Category
Object type
TitleSummer House at Margam (generic title)
Materials and techniques
salted paper print from a calotype negative
Brief description
19thC; Jones Calvert,Couple posed before a classical arch
Physical description
A small classical building with a central arch and four empty niches. A couple are posed in the foreground on the right.
Small amount of fading to thge corners of the image.
Dimensions
  • Height: 23cm
  • Width: 18cm
Object history
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 Richard Jones learned of these developments in 1839 through a neighbour, who was a cousin of Talbot. Jones made many pictures in the West of England and South Wales, where he lived. 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.

This photograph is as much a portrait of the Inigo Jones designed summer house in the grounds of Margam Castle as it is of the owners Christopher Rice Mansel Talbot and his wife Charlotte.The summer house is taken at the slightly oblique angle often chosen by Jones and this view is accentuated by the diagonal path in the foreground. Shadow increases the dominance of the horizontal elements on its façade. The shallow arch above central entrance is surrealistically occupied by a dark shrub.
Subjects depicted
Place depicted
Associated objects
Other number
LS4021 - Larry Schaaf number
Collection
Accession number
PH.70-1983

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Record createdSeptember 8, 2008
Record URL
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