Tuesday
My Dear Henry
This morning before I was visible arrived Dr Hamel <1> from Hamburgh, perhaps you know him (by name at least) as he is Membre de l’Académie Imperiale de Science de St Petersbourg. <2> He had infinite trouble to find you out, having been sent first to various of Lord Talbots’ Sons, & then to Queen Anne Street. <3> I gave him all mine & some you sent for Matilda, <4> so you must send me some more for her. <5> He wanted them extremely to send to Russia by the Sirius <6> which sails tomorrow. They are for the Emperor’s second son, <7> a very scientific young Man. He wishes to lay some before the Czarowitch <8> who arrives in London on Friday, & I promised you would send me some more for him. He was particularly struck with those done from Nature[.] <9> The Tower-at-Laycock Abbey, windows & riband which latter preferences rather surprized me, tho’ it did not in the Queen. <10> I gave him likewise many botanicals & the black lace. He is extremely eager, & I gave him your works on Photogeny & Genesis, <11> & promised him Hermes <12> but was at the moment unprovided with a copy. He seems a man of Universal [illegible] & exceedingly agreeable, & so enthusiastic about you he wants to go down to L. Abbey, but I told him you were coming to town soon. Have you seen the Mirror a publication Wright <13> brought me, with lithographed Photogeny? <14> a Dr Golding Bird<15> figures in it--
Notes:
1. Dr Joseph Christianovich Hamel or Gamel (1788–1862), scientist. While German born, Hamel was a corresponding member of the Imperial Academy of Sciences (later called the Russian Academy of Sciences) and from 1829 was appointed a regular member of staff in the department of chemistry and technology applied to art and craft. Highly respected and well liked, Hamel became a sort of roving scientific ambassador, gathering information on science and new technology. In April 1839, leaving on his regular foreign service, he was asked by the botanists K. M. Ber and F. Brandt to find out about WHFT’s invention which they hoped to use for depicting natural history objects.
2. Member of the Imperial Academy of Science of St Petersburg.
3. 44 Queen Ann Street: London home of the Mundy family and a frequent base for WHFT.
4. Matilda Feilding (1775-1849), WHFT's 'aunt' - sister of Charles Feilding, his stepfather.
5. Copies of photogenic drawings. WHFT’s early photographs relied on ample sunlight for their exposure. The weather had been so miserable since the public announcement of photography in January that he was unable to produce any new prints in sufficient quantity to meet the demand.
6. The SS Sirius was a 703 ton wood hulled paddlewheel steamship built in 1837 for the London to Cork run. It became famous the next year when it beat Brunel's Great Western by a day crossing the Atlantic. It sailed from Gravesend on 1 May, bound for St Petersburg, its only voyage there.
7. Tsar Nicholas I (1796–1855), Russian Emperor (1825–1855), and his very young second son Constantine Nicholaevitch (1827–1892).
8. The czarowich was the eldest son of the Tsar, Alexander II (1818-1881). To great relief in diplomatic circles, he arrived at Deptford on Friday 3 May, a sign that Anglo-Russian relations were perhaps not hopeless after all.
9. Partially because of technical difficulties, WHFT at first did not recognise that pictures made in a camera, rather than photograms (contact prints of objects) were the real strength of his process. Lady Elisabeth was instrumental in getting him to take more camera views - see Doc. No: 03874.
10. Caroline Augusta Edgcumbe, née Feilding, Lady Mt Edgcumbe (1808–1881); WHFT’s half-sister, was lady-in-waiting to Victoria (1819–1901), Queen of the United Kingdom (1837–1901), Empress of India (1876–1901).
11. WHFT, Some Account of the Art of Photogenic Drawing, or the Process by which Natural Objects may be made to Delineate Themselves without the Aid of the Artist’s pencil. Read before the Royal Society, January 31, 1839 (London: R & J E Taylor, 1839); WHFT, The Antiquity of the Book of Genesis, Illustrated by Some New Arguments (London: Longman, Orme, Green, Brown and Longman, 1839). [See Larry J. Schaaf, The Photographic Art of William Henry Fox Talbot (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2000), p. 50].
12. WHFT, Hermes: or Classical and Antiquarian Researches, No. 2. (London: Longman, Orme, Green, Brown & Longman, 1839).
13. James Wright, footman to the Talbots & Constable for Lacock.
14. The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction published a ‘Fac-simile of a Photogenic Drawing’. “This was not a photomechanical reproduction, but rather a wood engraver’s skillful interpretation”. For more information on this image see Schaaf, Sun Pictures Catalogue 12: Talbot and Photogravure (New York: Hans P. Kraus, Jr, Inc, 2003), p. 18.
15. Dr Golding Bird (1814-1854) had a wide range of interests, especially in science applied to medical treatments, and established the first electrical therapy department at Guy's Hospital in London. He lectured and published on a variety of subjects.