link to Talbot Project home page link to De Montfort University home page link to Glasgow University home page
Project Director: Professor Larry J Schaaf
 

Back to the letter search >

Result number 22 of 33:   < Back     Back to results list   Next >  

Document number: 6628
Date: 31 May 1852
Recipient: FITZMAURICE Henry Petty
Author: TALBOT William Henry Fox
Collection: PRIVATE
Last updated: 9th December 2014

Lacock
31 May/52

Dear Ld Lansdowne

I request your acceptance as a lover of the Arts, of a trifling specimen of the instantaneous portraiture obtained by my invention.<1> The time of sitting for this portrait was only three seconds, sometimes it can be done in one– nor do we suppose that we have at all reached the Ultima Thule.

I intend to have the pleasure of calling upon you on Wedny or Thursday if you should happen to be disengaged at that time– I wish to request your advice, and in fact sanction, as to what I ought to do in the very anomalous and I almost think unprecedented circumstances in which this invention has placed me– It is now rapidly coming into general use, as I always anticipated, and the artists now find its aid will be indispensable to them– The consequence is that an unexampled pressure is exerted upon me to induce me to surrender the remaining 4 years of the patent right pro bono publico, although I have every reason to believe that the Privy Council would prolong it for the full term of 14 years more. The Privy Council is not in the least swayed by the passions & interests of the person however numerous they may be who appear in opposition to the prayer for the prolongation of a patent– Such opposition is looked for by the judicial members of the P. Council as a matter of course.

Nevertheless if I believed that the persons most eminent in Science and Art were of opinion that injury is done by the patent to the progress of the art itself, I should be most ready to abandon it. I shall therefore be most happy to hear any advice you may think proper to give me in this difficulty and remain

Ever your affte Nephew
H.F.Talbot


Notes:

1. This letter was sold at Christie’s, London, on 12 October 1994 as part of The Historical Archives at Bowood House. The lot included a mounted albumen print (Schaaf 3704) of a man traditionally but incorrectly identified as being of the Hungarian patriot Lajos Kossuth (1802-1984); see, for example H J P Arnold, William Henry Fox Talbot; Pioneer of Photography and Man of Science (London: Hutchinson Benham, Ltd, 1977), p. 173, pl. 75. The example in the Rijksmuseum is titled 'Signor Sentura'. The pair was auctioned at Sothebys, London, in July 2008.

Result number 22 of 33:   < Back     Back to results list   Next >