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Document number: 04485
Date: 12 Apr 1842
Recipient: TALBOT William Henry Fox
Author: QUETELET Lambert Adolphe Jacques
Collection: British Library, London, Manuscripts - Fox Talbot Collection
Last updated: 5th April 2010

Bruxelles
le 12 Avril 1842.

Monsieur,

J’ai l’honneur de vous accuser réception des nouveaux dessins photographiques <1> que vous avez bien voulu m’adresser. <2> Si je ne vous ai pas remercié plus tot pour cet envoi, c’est que je desirois pouvoir vous annoncer en même temps que j’avois mis sous les yeux de notre Academie les magnifiques échantillons de photographie que vous lui destiniez; l’académie les a vus avec la plus grande satisfaction; elle prend l’interet le plus vif aux progrès que vous faites faire à ce bel art. La classe des lettres n’a pas Vu avec [illegible] de plaisir tout le parti que l’on pourra tirer de votre invention pour la reproduction des anciennes chartes et diplômes. <3>

Je saisis cette occasion pour vous prier, Monsieur, d’agréer les assurances particulières de mes sentimens de haute considération.

Quetelet

Secrétaire de l’Académie royale

à Monsieur
Monsieur W. h. Talbot
Membre de la société royale de Londres, illegible
Somerset house Londres


Translation:

Brussels
12 April 1842.

Dear Sir,

I have the honour of acknowledging to you reception of the new photographic drawings which you have kindly sent me. If I have not thanked you earlier for this package sent, it is because I wanted to be able to announce to you at the same time that I had put to the scrutiny of our Academy the magnificent samples of photography that you sent it; the academy looked on them with the greatest satisfaction; it takes the greatest interest in the progress that you are bringing to this fine art. The literature class did not see with [illegible] pleasure the whole use to which one will be able to put your invention for the reproduction of old charters and diplomas.

I am seizing this occasion, Sir, to ask you to accept my sincere and particular regards.

Quetelet

Secretary of the Royal Academy

Mr W. H. Talbot
Member of the Royal Society of London, [illegible]
Somerset House London


Notes:

1. These photographs, which were probably Calotypes, have not been located.

2. See Doc. No: 04476.

3. For examples of this see “Fac-Simile of an Old Printed Page”, plate IX of WHFT, The Pencil of Nature (London: Longman, Brown, Green, & Longmans, June 1844–April 1846 [issued in six fascicles]), Schaaf 851; the accompanying text states that ‘to the Antiquarian this application of the photographic art seems destined to be of great advantage’. Reproduced in Larry J. Schaaf, Sun Pictures Catalogue Three: The Harold White Collection of Work by William Henry Fox Talbot (New York: Hans P. Kraus, Jr., Inc., 1987), pp. 70–71.