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Capuchin Friars, Valetta, Malta

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Capuchin Friars, Valetta, Malta

Calvert Richard Jones  (Welsh, 1802–1877)

Date:
1846
Medium:
Salted paper print from paper negative
Dimensions:
Image: 8.3 x 10.2 cm (3 1/4 x 4 in.) Frame: 35.6 x 43.2 cm (14 x 17 in.) (Framed together with FI.26.2)
Classification:
Photographs
Credit Line:
National Media Museum, Bradford, United Kingdom

This artwork is part of Faking It: Manipulated Photography Before Photoshop

This artwork is not on display

  • Description

    In 1846 Jones, who learned the new art of photography directly from its English inventor, William Henry Fox Talbot, set off on a lengthy photographic tour of the Mediterranean. He stopped for four months on the island of Malta, where he recorded views of ships and harbors, picturesque street scenes, and portraits of exotically costumed locals, including this group of bearded and robed Capuchin friars. The print shows four friars on a sunny rooftop. In the negative, however, the silhouette of a fifth man lurks just behind the others. All that was required to make him disappear was a touch of India ink on the negative. Jones was eager to market his photographs as souvenirs for tourists and probably felt that the fifth man crowded the composition.

  • Provenance

    This photograph was part of William Henry Fox Talbot's archive, which included photographs, correspondence, manuscripts and research notes. It was left to his son Charles Henry, who on his death, left its contents to his niece, Miss Matilda Gilchrist-Clark (1871-1958). In 1934, she gave a large portion of this material to the former Science Museum - now called the National Media Museum. See Larry J Schaaf, "Records of the Dawn of Photography; Talbot's Notebooks P & Q," (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), p. xv; Pam Roberts, "The Royal Photographic Society Collection," (Bath: Royal Photographic Society, 1994), p. 53. Reproduced in Rollin Buckman, "The Photographic Work of Calvert Richard Jones," (London: Science Museum: H.M.S.O., 1990), n.p.

190049209

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