Lot 300C email save

William Henry Fox Talbot, fern, 1863

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Photoglyphic engraving, printed on thick paper, engraved caption "Photoglyphic Engraving of a Fern. H.F.Talbot", platemark 10 x 7.1cm (4 x 2_in.)

***A proof impression before the addition of engraved volume and plate numbers. The published state appeared in an article by Talbot, Photoglyphic Engravings of Ferns; with Remarks. A summary with a photoglyph, plate XIV, in: Transactions of the Botanical Society, Edinburgh, vol 7 (June 1863), p.569, and is illustrated by Larry Schaaf, Sun Gardens. Victorian Photograms by Anna Atkins, New York, 1985, fig.18. "Talbot, more than anyone, realized that the unpredictable permanence of his photographs severely restricted their use in publication. His efforts turned toward converting the photograph into printer's ink, and he accomplished this in a limited but useful way by 1858. Photoglyphic engraving, a means of making a steel or copper intaglio plate by the action of light, enabled conventional printing presses to utilize photographs." (Schaaf, op.cit., p.39). Talbot's process, patented in 1852 and 1858, provided the basis for developments in photogravure. See Eugene Ostroff, The Photomechanical Process, in: Mike Weaver, ed., Henry Fox Talbot: Selected texts and bibliography, Oxford, 1992, pp125-130..

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