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Document number: 04141
Date: 05 Oct 1840
Recipient: TALBOT William Henry Fox
Author: BREWSTER David
Collection: National Science and Media Museum, Bradford
Collection number: 1937-4863
Last updated: 5th May 2010

Dear Sir,

I write this moment to mention to you that I have been requested to write a short Article in the next No of the Edinr Review <1> on Photogenic Drawing and the Daguerreotype. As I am very anxious to do justice to your labours I would reckon it a great favour if you could send me any information that you can, or any suggestions that you may think useful.

I believe that I have not thanked you for the last series of drawings you were so good as to send me. – I exhibited them at the Physical Section <2> & gave an account of your process in the best way I could. The view of the West side (I think) of Lacock Abbey <3> is truly beautiful, & equals almost the Daguerreotype. The Daguerreotypes executed in Edinr by a Mr Thos Davison <4> far surpass any done in Paris or London.

We had a splendid meeting of the Association at Glasgow.

I am dear Sir Ever Most Faithfully yrs
D Brewster

Linnburn House <5>
Octr 5th 1840

P.S. I shall be at St Andrews in a day or two.

H.F. Talbot Esqr

Notes:

1.This is possibly the article that evolved into a combined review of four photographic publications, in the Edinburgh Review, v. 76 no. 154, January 1843, pp. 309–344, with a supplementary note in April 1843, v. 76 no. 156, p. 563.

2. That is, of the meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science, held in Glasgow from 17 September 1840. Brewster ‘explained to the meeting the method of executing Photogenic Drawings on paper, as invented by Mr Fox Talbot, and exhibited to the Section a series of very beautiful drawings executed by Mr Talbot himself, and presented to him by that distinguished philosopher.’ D. Brewster, ‘A Brief Account of the Camera Obscura, and other Apparatus, used in making Daguerreotype Drawings’, British Association for the Advancement of Science Report, 1840, part 2, pp. 8–9.

3. The ‘West Front’ of Lacock Abbey, noted by WHFT in his memoranda book as having been sent to Brewster on 6 June 1840. Brewster’s copy is now in the J. Paul Getty Museum (84.XZ.574.83), and is illustrated in Graham Smith, Disciples of Light; Photographs in the Brewster Album (Malibu: J. Paul Getty Museum, 1990).

4. Thomas Davidson (1798–1878), scientific instrument maker and Daguerreotypist. [See Doc. No: 04163]. He was the author of The Art of Daguerreotyping, with the Improvements of the Process and Apparatus (Edinburgh: 1841).

5. Possibly at Linburn, West Lothian, southwest of Edinburgh.