My dear Henry
We had studied the account of your Photographic Engraving as given in the Athæneum <1> [sic] with the greatest interest, so you may imagine how delighted Mr Llewelyn <2> is, with the very perfect and most wonderful, & promising specimens you have been so good as to send us –
He desires me to thank you very much for them – and to enclose you a specimen of his botanical records of a Wisteria which we had this Spring loaded with blossom inside the Conservatory – it being a plant we admire so much, as to give it 2 seasons & we have it again, as now, outside – but we have not room for such a splendid display as your 90 foot wall!
Pray do not forget your engagement to make portraits for me of your children – We find these records of passing time, invaluable & have many little daguerreotype <3> ones to mark the lapse of years – How superior are the paper portraits!
Believe me your very affte cousin
Emma Llewelyn
Penllergare
May 27th 1853
[envelope:]
Henry Fox Talbot Esqr.
Lacock Abbey
Chippenham
Notes:
1. WHFT,‘Photographic Engraving’, Athenaeum (London), no.1328, 9 April 1853, pp. 450-451, and ‘Photographic Engraving’, Athenaeum (London), no. 1329, 16 April 1853, pp. 481-482.
2. John Dillwyn Llewelyn (1810–1882), Welsh photographer, JP & High Sheriff.
3. This seemed to be a family-wide problem, for the best portrait of WHFT is Antoine Claudet's daguerreotype.