Londres, 31 Sackville Street,
Juin 1839

Monsieur

Ayant entendu que M. Strangways ^<1> envoye un courrier en Italie, je profite de cette occasion pour vous envoyer un petit paquet de mes dessins photogéniques ^<2> – Je crois que ce nouvel art de mon invention sera d’un grand sécours [sic] aux Botanistes – surtout les dessins que je fais avec le microscope solaire; – je me borne à present à un grossissement de 100 fois en surface, ce qui suffit pour un grand nombre d’objets: peut être j’arriverai un jour à quelquechose de plus considérable.

Croyez-moi, Monsieur, Votre tres humble serviteur
H. F. Talbot

J’ai prié M. Hammersley ^<3> banquier, de Londres, d’acquitter la petite somme que je vous dois, par son correspondant à Bologne. Une de ces plantes servira pour votre Fl. Italica. ^<4> Je l’ai cueilli un jour à Gènes. Croyez vous que c’est le Bromus maximus?

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Translation:

London, 31 Sackville Street,
June 1839

Sir

Having heard that Mr Strangways is sending a courier to Italy, I am taking advantage of this opportunity to send you a little package of my photogenic drawings – I think that this new art invented by me will be a big help to Botanists – especially the drawings that I am doing with the solar microscope; – I am limiting myself at present to an enlargement of 100 times, which is sufficient for a large number of objects: perhaps I will manage one day to do something larger.

Believe me to be, Sir, Your very humble servant
H. F. Talbot

I have asked Mr Hammersley, a London banker, to pay back the little amount that I owe you, by his correspondent bank in Bologna. One of these plants will be useful for your Fl. Italica. I picked it one day at Genoa. Do you think it is the Bromus maximus?

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Notes:

1. William Thomas Horner Fox Strangways, 4^th Earl of Ilchester (1795–1865), botanist, art collector & diplomat.

2. Bertoloni preserved many of the photographs that WHFT sent to him in an album, now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. This and two other letters from WHFT to Bertoloni, along with a 15 August 1839 letter from William Thomas Horner Fox Strangways to Bertoloni are also included in this album, [See Doc. No: 03921, and Doc. No: 04089]. See also Malcolm Daniel, ‘L’Album Bertoloni’, Fotografia & Fotografi a Bologna, 1839-1900 (Bologna: Grafis, 1992); and Graham Smith, ‘Talbot and Botany: The Bertoloni Album’, History of Photography, v. 17 no. 1, Spring 1993, pp. 33–48.

3. Of Hammersley & Company, bankers, London.

4. Antoine Bertoloni, Flora Italica: sistens plantas in Italia et in insulis circumstantibus sponte nascentes (Bologna: Ex typographaeo Richardi Masii, 1833–1854).