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Document number: 8074
Date: 10 Apr 1860
Recipient: TALBOT William Henry Fox
Author: SHARP Thomas
Collection: National Science and Media Museum, Bradford
Collection number: 1937-5400
Collection number historic: Acc 21567 (envelope)
Last updated: 14th November 2012

London N.W.
60. Albert St. Mornington Crescent
April 10,1860

Sir,

About the middle of last year I took the liberty to address you in respect of Photoglyphic Engraving which from the start has interested me not a little. On the occasion to which I refer you were kind enough to favor me with a few lines, but if my memory serves me, you were then in ill health, & were not enabled to give so much attention to the matter as you wished. A Gentleman at the Meeting of the R. Academy in Dublin a few weeks since exhibited some impressions from plates that had been engraved by your process, but which by an accident I just missed seeing to my great mortification. <1> An Artist, however, a Member of the Academy assured me to all his language they were very tolerable & might with a few touches by the hand of the Engraver be turned to profitable account.

Now Sir, an Engraver in Town, a friend a mine who has engraved with marvellous fidelity some small photographs in the ordinary manner by hand is very desirous of trying what he could do with one of your plates if it be not asking you too great a favor. I may say that he has executed several, and by deepening the shadows & giving force as it were to the Picture, he has no doubt by thus combining a little art with Science, that they might be brought into successful operation.

Permit me to say that respecting the fading of ordinary Photographs, a strong feeling exists among the Publishers in the City, and they are very desirous to avail themselves of some means by which, especially in Portraiture at the present time, truth & permanence may be secured.

From an application that has been made to me, I am as a practical Photographer equally desirous of giving my assistance and, if not trespassing too much on your time, I shall indeed esteem it a favor if you would grant me an interview, or enable me in some way further to confer with you at once on this subject.

I am Sir, yr. most obedt. Servt.
Thoms Sharp

H. Fox Talbot, Esqr
Laycock Abbey

[envelope, annotated by WHFT "Sharp":]
H. Fox Talbot Esqe.
Laycock Abbey
near Chippenham
Wilts:


Notes:

1. This was Francis Steward Beatty (1807-1891), Irish engraver, Daguerreotypist and social activist.