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Document number: 03852
Date: 30 Mar 1839
Dating: this is the date when the text was published
Recipient: JERDAN William
Author: TALBOT William Henry Fox
Collection: PUBLISHED
Last updated: 9th May 2013

[The original letter has not been located; this version was printed in The Literary Gazette and Journal of the Belles Lettres, section for Fine Arts, 'The New Art,' no. 1158, 30 March 1839, p. 202.]

Dear Sir, -

In the Literary Gazette of last Saturday there is a statement in which I cannot acquiesce: I therefore trust you will allow me to trespass a moment on your columns, and to explain my reasons for dissenting from it. It is stated that some gentlemen <1> have made a considerable improvement upon my art of photogenic drawing, and, indeed, that this discovery was made by several persons simultaneously.

I fully expect that great improvements will hereafter be made, which I have never so much as thought of; - but this is not one of them: it is not different from my method, but is the same thing which I have executed long before.

I have no doubt whatever that the gentlemen who proposed it imagined it to be a new process hitherto overlooked; and, although this is a mistake, I should not have considered it worth while to say anything on the subject, if they had not gone so far as to apply for a patent; which, however, I understand, has been since abandoned. I greatly regret that they did not do me the honour to read my memoir on this subject, presented to the Royal Society on the 31st of January, which has been since printed and freely distributed, as well as reprinted in two periodical journals: in which, Section 7 describes the photogenic pictures obtained by painting on glass, which, as I have there remarked, " resemble more than any others the productions of the artist's pencil: and for such they have been generally mistaken;" because they give, not mere outlines only, but all the details of the figures perfectly well shaded.

And I also regret that they were not present when I first exhibited a collection of photogenic drawings to the Royal Society and the Royal Institution (January 25th and 31st); because one or two of these figures formed part of the series. Since that time I have made several more; and some of them certainly possess considerable effect, and would be no disgrace to the pencil of an amateur. Some of these paintings are grotesque subjects; others are more rational, and give a better idea of the capabilities of this branch of the art. I have the honour to enclose to you, as a little specimen, a figure of which I know not the subject, since I did not paint it on the glass myself; but it appears to me to represent John Bull, in an attitude of firm resolution - for instance, as if he expected foreign aggression, and was resolved to repel it. Well, sir, of this figure and others I have made many copies during the last two months, and given them away to my friends, and even sent some of them to Germany. These pictures are formed in the following way, which contains in itself both the principles which have been mistakenly, during the last week, advanced as new ones. They are painted on glass with transparent varnish of different colours, which, by the action of light, produce as many different shadowy tints upon the resulting image. The blue colour gives a dark shade; the yellow, red, &c &c various feebler ones. These variations produce an excellent effect, since every gradation of shade can be introduced at pleasure (which is one of the principles contended for as new): and the sharp black lines are given by the point of a needle cutting through the dark varnish (which is the other principle).

Need I say more? Nearly five years ago I made imitations of etchings, which were executed wholly in this manner, with a needle, upon glass. They differed indeed from those now produced by artists, as an inferior hand-writing differs from a good one - in execution, but not in principle.

I will now change the subject to something more interesting to your readers, by presenting them with an extract from one of M. Biot's <2> letters to myself, in which that distinguished philosopher relates the experiments which he has made upon my new* sensitive paper. I will preface them by saying, that I have made some more of this paper lately, and noted its degree of sensibility more accurately, as follows, viz:

Exposed to broad daylight (but not to sunshine), the time it took to receive a distinct impression from the light was repeatedly observed with a seconds' watch, and found to be sometimes two seconds, sometimes three seconds. I have, therefore, great hopes that it will be found very useful for obtaining images with the camera obscura.

I remain, Dear Sir, &c.
H. Fox Talbot.

*Vide Proceeding of the Royal Society, March 21

Extract of a Letter from M. Biot

"Independently of its remarkable degree of sensitiveness, this paper presents other advantages to physical science, on account of the distinct shades of colour through which it successively passes. It is also very curious that a preparation which has been dried at the fire, and consequently entirely deprived of moisture, should be so mutable; although chemistry has already offered some rare examples of this.

"The interest with which I views this circumstance, engaged me to make some experiments upon your preparation, in order to vary its application to the researches in which I am occupied. First, I wished to know whether that change of colour was in any degree influenced by the paper itself. I therefore spread the substance on a piece of white unglazed porcelain (instead of paper), taking care to operate by night, and drying it each time at the fire, as you say. I thus obtained a dry solid coating upon the porcelain, which I shut up in a dark place until morning. In the morning I took it out and found it of a pale sulphur-yellow colour. I then presented it to the daylight at an open window looking north. The weather was then very cloudy; yet, no sooner had I so presented it, than already it was turned green, and soon afterwards it became nearly black. I then wished to know, whether the preparation would succeed equally well, if not dried at the fire. I therefore, in a darkened room, mixed the aqueous solution of bromide of potassium with that of nitrate of silver.

"A precipitate fell, which I spread on a porcelain plate and left it to dry in the dark. The next day I wrapped it in several folds of paper, and brought it into another room to shew it to a friend. But having taken off the covers, in a dark corner of the room, in order to exhibit the original colour ( pale lemon-yellow), instantly we saw its tint become green; and I had hardly time to present it to a window opening to the north, before its colour had passed to dark olive-green, after which it almost immediately became almost black. I do not think it possible to find any substance more sensitive to light."

H. F. Talbot

*Both noticed elsewhere. - Ed. L. G.


Notes:

1. William Havell (1782-1857), and James Tibbetts Willmore (1800-1863), discussed but never executed a patent for reproducing etchings on glass on photogenic drawing paper (essentially the cliché verre process). See articles in the The Literary Gazette and Journal of belles lettres, science and art, 30 March, and 6, 13 April 1839.

2. Jean-Baptiste Biot (1774-1862), French scientist.