
Lace
<p>William Henry Fox Talbot, one of the inventors of photography, was a polymath who felt as comfortable writing Greek verse as he did experimenting with botany and chemistry. His negative/positive process—and the reproductive possibilities it engendered—came to dominate photography until the digital age. Talbot held artistic aspirations, but he was also interested in the myriad scientific and commercial applications for photography. He hoped that his photographs of lace, for example, might make it easier to copy intricate patterns and thus facilitate manufacturing. The negative for this print was likely made by laying a fragment of lace upon a piece of photosensitized paper and exposing it to the sun, without the aid of a camera.</p>
Catalogue
- Year
- 1844
- Medium
- Salted paper print
- Dimensions
- Image: 18.6 × 22.8 cm (7 3/8 × 9 in.); Paper: 18.6 × 22.5 cm (7 3/8 × 8 7/8 in.)
- Collection
- Art Institute of Chicago
- Artist
- William Henry Fox Talbot
Artist

Photography
William Henry Fox Talbot was an English scientist, inventor, and photography pioneer who invented the salted paper and calotype processes, precursors to photographic processes of the later 19th and 20th centuries. His work in the 1840s on photomechanical reproduction led to the creation of the photoglyphic engraving process, the precursor to photogravure. He was the holder of a controversial patent that affected the early development of commercial photography in Britain. He was also a noted photographer who contributed to the development of photography as an artistic medium. He published The Pencil of Nature (1844–1846), which was illustrated with original salted paper prints from his calotype negatives and made some important early photographs of Oxford, Paris, Reading, and York.
Full artist profile →More
More by William Henry Fox Talbot
Untitled
1864 · Photoglyphic engraving employing resin ground
Wheat
1854 · Photoglyphic engraving
Fern
1852 · photogravure
Untitled
1852 · Photoglyphic engraving
Furness Abbey
1848 · Photoglyphic engraving
Branch of a Fern
1848 · Photoglyphic engraving made without a gauze or resin ground screen
Record
Verified by WattsOS- Artist
- William Henry Fox Talbot
- Year
- 1844
- Medium
- Salted paper print
- Dimensions
- Image: 18.6 × 22.8 cm (7 3/8 × 9 in.); Paper: 18.6 × 22.5 cm (7 3/8 × 8 7/8 in.)
- Watts ID
- WW-1844-023970
Source
- Collection
- Art Institute of Chicago
- Source
- aic
- Reference
- View at source
- Status
- verified





