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Folded piece of crape cloth

Print
ca.1858 (photoengraving)
Artist/Maker
Place of origin

Talbot was the British inventor of photography. In 1834 he discovered how to make and fix images through the action of light and chemistry on paper. These ‘negatives’ could be used to make multiple prints. This revolutionised image making.

Talbot excelled in many fields, including mathematics, optics, botany and chemistry. However, it was his inability to master drawing outdoors that prompted him to experiment with capturing images inside a camera. He published his photographic discoveries and ideas, illustrated with original photographs, in his book The Pencil of Nature. Talbot patented his negative photographic process, which he called the ‘calotype’, in 1841. Later, he pioneered photographic engraving – printing photographs in ink. His processes became the basis of virtually all subsequent photography.

Object details

Categories
Object type
TitleFolded piece of crape cloth (generic title)
Materials and techniques
Brief description
Print by William Henry Fox Talbot, 'Folded piece of crape cloth', photoglyphic engraving, ca.1858
Physical description
Photoglyphic engraving, removed from frame; RPS025523-RPS025526 mounted together.
Dimensions
  • Image height: 67mm
  • Image width: 99mm
Gallery label
Photography Centre 2018-20:

William Henry Fox Talbot (1800–77)

Talbot was the British inventor of photography. In 1834 he discovered how to make and fix images through the action of light and chemistry on paper. These ‘negatives’ could be used to make multiple prints. This revolutionised image making.

Talbot excelled in many fields, including mathematics, optics, botany and chemistry. However, it was his inability to master drawing outdoors that prompted him to experiment with capturing images inside a camera. He published his photographic discoveries and ideas, illustrated with original photographs, in his book The Pencil of Nature. Talbot patented his negative photographic process, which he called the ‘calotype’, in 1841. Later, he pioneered photographic engraving – printing photographs in ink. His processes became the basis of virtually all subsequent photography.

You can see how calotypes are made in the ‘Dark Tent’ film room in Room 99.

The Royal Photographic Society Collection at the V&A, acquired with the generous assistance of the Heritage Lottery Fund and Art Fund
Cameraless Photography

William Henry Fox Talbot (1800–77)
Ferns, leaves and fabric
c. 1852
Photographic engravings
25 x 24 cm
Museum no. RPS. 242, 243, 244, 245-2017

Talbot’s silver-based photographs often suffered from fading when they entered the real-world conditions of sunlit drawing rooms and coal-smoke laden country houses. For the last 25 years of his life, he sought to perfect a method of using silver-based photography to faithfully capture nature’s drawing, and then photographically producing an intaglio printing plate from this that would allow the final prints to be rendered in permanent printer’s ink. As in his earliest photographic experiments, he at first turned to plants and fabric to make contact-printed images on his copper or steel printing plates. He first called these ‘photographic engravings’ and patented the process in 1852. It was the direct forerunner of the modern photogravure process.

The Royal Photographic Society Collection at the V&A, acquired with the generous assistance of the Heritage Lottery Fund and Art Fund
Credit line
The Royal Photographic Society Collection at the V&A, acquired with the generous assistance of the National Lottery Heritage Fund and Art Fund.
Production
Same as photographs in the RPS collection, RPS025498 and RPS025522.
Summary
Talbot was the British inventor of photography. In 1834 he discovered how to make and fix images through the action of light and chemistry on paper. These ‘negatives’ could be used to make multiple prints. This revolutionised image making.

Talbot excelled in many fields, including mathematics, optics, botany and chemistry. However, it was his inability to master drawing outdoors that prompted him to experiment with capturing images inside a camera. He published his photographic discoveries and ideas, illustrated with original photographs, in his book The Pencil of Nature. Talbot patented his negative photographic process, which he called the ‘calotype’, in 1841. Later, he pioneered photographic engraving – printing photographs in ink. His processes became the basis of virtually all subsequent photography.
Bibliographic reference
Schaaf, Larry John. The Photographic Art of William Henry Fox Talbot. Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2000. ISBN 0691050007.
Other numbers
  • RPS025525 - Royal Photographic Society number
  • old RPS 157 - Royal Photographic Society number
Collection
Accession number
RPS.244-2017

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Record createdMarch 31, 2017
Record URL
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