Dear Sir,
I am delighted to hear that you are to have the Rumford Medals. <1> I had prepared a Philippic <2> against the R Society <3> for their treatment of the Calotype; <4> but I am now at peace with them on that score. I will mention it of course; & there will be plenty time before my Paper <5> goes to press to receive whatever information you may wish to send me.
You never mentioned to me at Lacock Abbey any thing about wax. I should like to know what kind of wax you use, & how you use it. <6> I cannot understand Mr Collin’s <7> Process. His faces are beautiful, & his drapery the worst possible. Why are his drawings like China Ink ones? He must take his positives with difft materials not from those we use.
I have finished my acct of the Daguerreotype, <8> and had mentioned Claudet’s <9> improvements. I presume it is understood that Daguerre <10> never made any Photographs on Paper. Arago <11> seems to state that he did in the Comptes Rendus 1839 Tom VIII p. 208, <12> and that they rejected your processes for better ones. I cannot see in the future Nos any contradiction of this; but I presume I may safely do it.– You may write me till the 20th or 25th of Novr. Did I send you a large Portrait of Lord Campbell & Sir George Campbell? <13> Some of the positives are perfect Rembrandts. Major Playfair <14> has taken some groups with many figures which are singularly fine.
I think the Salt in the Positive paper does more harm than good. I am working without it.
I am Dear Sir Ever Most Truly yrs
D Brewster
St Leonards College
Octr 29th 1842
H.F. Talbot Esqr.
Notes:
1. Presented to WHFT for his invention of photography [see Doc. No: 04655]. Benjamin Thompson, Count von Rumford (1753–1814) had established a fund in 1796 for the biennial presentation by the Royal Society of London of a gold and a silver medal for practical discoveries relating to heat or light. Brewster had been awarded the medals in 1818.
2. Diatribe.
3. Royal Society of London.
4. See Doc. No: 04541.
5. The article was a combined review of four photographic publications, in the Edinburgh Review, v. 76, no. 154, January 1843, pp. 309–44, with a supplementary note in April 1843, v. 76 no. 156, p. 563.
6. To make the paper more translucent. Sometimes oil was used for the purpose [see Doc. No: 04628]. Also see Larry J. Schaaf, The Photographic Art of William Henry Fox Talbot (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2000), p. 24.
7. Henry Collen (1800–1879), miniature painter, calotypist & spiritualist, London.
8. No specific article on the Daguerreotype has been traced, but perhaps Brewster was referring to his upcoming combined review of four photographic publications, in the Edinburgh Review, v. 76, no. 154, January 1843, pp. 309–44, with a supplementary note in April 1843, v. 76 no. 156, p. 563.
9. Antoine Françoise Jean Claudet (1797–1867), London; French-born scientist, merchant & photographer, resident in London.
10. Louis Jacques Mandé Daguerre (1787–1851), French artist, showman & inventor.
11. Dominique François Jean Arago (1786–1853), French physicist, astronomer & man of science.
12. ‘Correspondence. Physique appliquée – Fixation des images de la chambre obscure’, Comptes Rendus hebdomadaires des séances de l’ de l’Académie des Sciences, v. 8 no. 6, 11 February 1839, pp. 207–208.
13. For this image see ‘Lord Campbell and Sir George Campbell’, taken 1842 by Dr John Adamson (1809–1870), physician & photographic pioneer, St Andrews. The image is reproduced in Graham Smith, Disciples of Light: Photographs in the Brewster Album (Los Angeles: The J. Paul Museum, 1990), p. 57. Sir George Campbell (b. 1788), assistant surgeon wiht the East India Company until he retired to Fife in 1823; his younger brother John Campbell, 1st Baron Campbell (1779–1861), lord chief justice and lord chancellor.
14. Sir Hugh Lyon Playfair (1786–1861), military & provost of St Andrew’s University.