[The envelope for this letter was offered separately on ebay in August 2015]
Paris
le 4 Mai 1866
Monsieur,
J’ai reçu votre honorée qui me donne la liste des vues que vous desirez avoir sur verre. <1> Je vais immédiatement m’en occuper et je vous les enverrai aussitôt achevées
Veuillez en attendant recevoir Monsieur l’assurance de la considération la plus distinguée de votre tout devoué serviteur
Ferrier
Translation:
Paris
4 May 1866
Dear Sir,
I received your letter which provides me with the list of views which you wish to have on glass. I will set to work on them immediately and I will send them to you once completed
Meanwhile please be assured of Sir the most sincere regards from your entirely devoted servant
Ferrier
[envelope:]
Monsieur Fox Talbot
Lacock Abbey
Chippenham
(Angleterre)
13 Great Stuart Street
Edinburgh
Notes:
1. For his experiments in photoglyphic engraving, WHFT rarely used his own photographs but instead purchased or was given glass positive photographs taken by other people. His main sources were Parisian, including Ferrier and the photographic publishers Clouzard & Soulier. See Larry J Schaaf, " 'The Caxton of Photography': Talbot's Etchings of Light," in edited by Mirjam Brusius, Katrina Dean, and Chitra Ramlington William Henry Fox Talbot: Beyond Photography (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2013), pp. 161-192.