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Document number: 6635
Date: 02 Jun 1852
Recipient: TALBOT William Henry Fox
Author: LLEWELYN John Dillwyn
Collection: British Library, London, Manuscripts - Fox Talbot Collection
Collection number historic: LA52-33
Last updated: 11th July 2010

My dear Sir

I have been delighted with the specimens of Talbotype <1> portraits you were good enough to send me – They are beyond comparison the best that I have seen - possessing the finished detail of a Daguerreotype without the ghastliness of its color.<2>

The picture of the child with its arch expression and fleeting smile sufficiently attests the extreme rapidity of the process – it is beautiful in every sense of the word.

I send you two or three attempts that I have made at Botanical photography, which I think may perhaps interest you as a branch of the art which has, so far as I know, been but little followed.

I am sure however that beautiful results might be obtained, and I propose to work with this view during the ensuing summer.

I also enclose a portrait of a friend – not because it is worth your acceptance, excepting as proving the sensibility of your original process- it was done with a single lens camera of long focus in a minute.

I wish that I had any pictures of Penrice <3> to offer you, but I have never worked there – the first that I make you shall have.-

It would give us very great pleasure if we could tempt you to visit us here we might make expeditions with our cameras from hence and take the pictures that you would choose, of the grounds and coast of Penrice the great tor and Three Cliffs Bay would make fine subjects and very suitable for photography – our garden here too would interest you – the Rhododendrons & Azaleas are now in great beauty. They grow well in this soil & climate and we have many sorts.-

and I remain Yours very truly
J.D. Llewelyn

Penllergare
June 2. 1852.

Notes:

1. Llewelyn and many of WHFT's friends hoped to honour the inventor with the name of the process, but WHFT himself modestly preferred the term calotype.

2. One of the main virtues of the Daguerreotype was its fine detail, but many found its silvery-gray tones to be funereal when capturing portraits.

3. Penrice Castle and Penrice House, Gower, Glamorgan, 10 mi SW of Swansea: home of Christopher Rice Mansel Talbot.

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