20 Mornington Road
N. W.
Novr 23. 1858.
Dear Sir
Mr Paul Pretsch has written to me enclosing some specimens of a sort of Photolithographic<1> process which he wishes me to illustrate in the same way as the Photoglyphic process was illustrated. The way of obtaining them is to prepare a photogalvanographic copper plate (Pretsch’s process) and from this to take a transfer on stone and thence to print in the usual lithographic way. As the expense would not be much, and as I imagine my readers to be interested in all new processes of this sort, I do not think there would be any difficulty in getting Petter & Galpin <2> to accede to his wishes. My object in now writing to you is to ask whether the process is at all an infringement of either of your patents as I should be very unwilling to do anything in the matter if you had any objection. I enclose a small specimen which he has sent me. The half tones are very good but it is not to be compared with the results of the Photoglyphic Process –
Believe me very truly yours
William Crookes.
H. F. Talbot Esqre
Notes:
1. The Patent Photo-Galvanographic Company (commonly, The Photogalvanographic Company) was based on the work of Paul Pretsch (1808–1873), Austrian photographer & inventor and former Manager of the Imperial Printing Establishment in Vienna. Located in Holloway Road, Islington, London, from 1856-1857, Pretsch took over as manager and Roger Fenton (1819–1869), photographer & lawyer, was a partner and their chief photographer. Starting in late 1856, they published a serial portfolio, Photographic Art Treasures, or Nature and Art Illustrated by Art and Nature, illustratated with photogalvanographs derived from several photographer's works. Photogalvanography was uncomfortably closely based on elements of WHFT’s patented 1852 Photographic Engraving but, unlike Talbot, the plates were heavily retouched by hand. Compounding the legal objections of Talbot, their former manager, Duncan Campbell Dallas, set up a competing company to produce the Dallastype. The company collapsed and near the end of 1860 Pretsch, out of money, allowed his patent to lapse. A public appeal was launched in 1861 to assist him but he returned to Vienna in 1863 in ill health, going back to the Imperial Printing Establishment, but finally succumbing to cholera.
1. Petter & Galpin Co, London printers, printed lithographs as well as copperplates.