London Novr 2 /46
H Fox Talbot Esq
&c &c &c
Sir
The present will be handed or forwarded to you by Mr Edward Anthony <1> (a relative of mine) who visits England principally for the purpose of making himself acquainted with the "Tabotype" [sic] process – He has allready [sic] made a visit to Reading <2> & is to have another interview with Mr Cowderoy <3> in a day or two – Mr Anthony is a gentleman well qualified to extend to the New World the beautifull [sic] invention with which you have endowed the Old World – I regret that your absence from England, at this moment, prevents me from paying to you my respect in person & to thank you for the specimens of Tabotype [sic] which you had the kindness to send me through Mr Gliddon- <4> On my return through England next spring I hope to have the pleasure of seeing you; in the mean time I beg of you to accept a beautifull [sic] specimen of American Fine Art which Mr Anthony will explain to you. – Whatever arrangement Mr A may make with your agent for the Talbotype may be considered perfectly secure and for which I hold myself personally responsible to you.
Enclosed is a letter from Mr Gliddon which I expected to have the pleasure of handing you in person, en attendant<5> I remain, dear Sir,
Yours very respectfully
R K Haight.
Notes:
1. Edward Anthony (1819 -1888), New York; photographer & merchant.
2. The Photographic Establisment of Nicolaas Henneman(1813-1898), Dutch, active in England; WHFT's valet, then assistant; photographer.
3. Benjamin Thomas Cowderoy (1812-1904), land agent in Reading; man of science; business manager for WHFT; later a politician in Australia.
4. WHFT was keen on applying photography to reproduction of both images and text and freely gave his permission to the Devonshire-born George Robbins Gliddon (1809-1857), an Egyptologist and American diplomat to use photography. He had Nicolaas Henneman produce prints for The Talbotype Applied to Hieroglyphics (Reading: 1846), comprising three photographs of hieroglyphs and his text. See Ricardo A. Caminos, "The Talbotype Applied to Hieroglyphics," Journal of Egyptian Archaeology, v. 52, 1966, pp. 65-70 and Plates XIII-XV. The ink ‘originals’ and accompanying loose prints are in the Talbot Collection of the National Media Museum, Bradford, and at the time Camino thought these were unique survivors; the copy in the British Library was lost to the Blitz. However, several other copies have been subsequently discovered. Three are in the Richard Lepsius collection in the State Library of Berlin. Gliddon dedicated one copy to Lepsius on 18 August 1846 and another (undated) to Joseph Bonomi; the third is not inscribed. On 18 August 1846, Gliddon dedicated a copy to the French Egyptologist Émile Prisse d’Avennes (1807-1879); it is bound into v. 219 of his diaries in the Bibliothèque nationale de France in Paris. A single plate is preserved in the Library Company of Philadelphia in the collection of Samuel Morton (1819-1850), a craniologist and ethnologist. On 17 June 1846, Gliddon wrote to Morton about Talbot’s new invention, enthusing that “if you introduced the Talbotype at Philadelphia, you need no longer employ an Artist in Skull-drawing, but save great expense and ensure supernatural accuracy in your Plates. Tis worth your consideration; for you can multiply ‘ad infinitum,’ at the mere cost of iodized paper.”
5. In the meantime.