The Fruit Sellers
Talbot was not only a man of learning and a Fellow of the Royal Society, he was also a member of Great Britain's landed gentry. Following the death of his father, six-month-old Henry Talbot was named the sole heir to the sprawling and somewhat ruinous estate known as Lacock Abbey. Established in 1232, the abbey was converted into a private residence and its church demolished after the dissolution of the monasteries by Henry VIII in 1539. The fifteenth-century cloisters of the abbey are the setting for this scene, which may have been set up by Talbot's close friend and photographic disciple Calvert Jones.
Portraiture and figure studies became a viable subject for photography only after Talbot's second important discovery. On September 23, 1840, Talbot had found a way to chemically excite--or develop, as we would say--the latent image that had registered on a sheet of photo sensitized paper during an exposure too brief to imprint itself visibly. With this new process, patented by its inventor as the calotype or talbotype, exposure times could be reduced from minutes to seconds.
Portraiture and figure studies became a viable subject for photography only after Talbot's second important discovery. On September 23, 1840, Talbot had found a way to chemically excite--or develop, as we would say--the latent image that had registered on a sheet of photo sensitized paper during an exposure too brief to imprint itself visibly. With this new process, patented by its inventor as the calotype or talbotype, exposure times could be reduced from minutes to seconds.
Artwork Details
- Title: The Fruit Sellers
- Artist: Possibly by William Henry Fox Talbot (British, Dorset 1800–1877 Lacock)
- Artist: Possibly by Calvert Richard Jones (British, Swansea, Wales 1802–1877 Bath, England)
- Date: ca. 1845
- Medium: Salted paper print from paper negative
- Dimensions: 17.1 x 21.1 cm (6 3/4 x 8 5/16 in. )
- Classification: Photographs
- Credit Line: Gilman Collection, Purchase, Harriette and Noel Levine Gift, 2005
- Object Number: 2005.100.607
- Curatorial Department: Photographs
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William Henry Fox Talbot
1844
William Henry Fox Talbot
1845
William Henry Fox Talbot
before March 22, 1844
William Henry Fox Talbot
before June 1845
William Henry Fox Talbot
before September 1844
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