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David Octavius Hill
Signing the Deed of Demission - Large carbon reproductions
1866, 29 June
Google Books
LL/39625
"Large Carbon Reproductions", The Photographic News: A Weekly Record of the Progress of Photography, Vol. X, No.408, June 29, 1866, pp. 304-305.
LARGE CARBON REPRODUCTIONS.
We have referred, in a previous article, to the successful application of carbon printing to some very large reproductions. It may be interesting to our readers to learn a few particulars of these reproductions, as illustrating the mode in which photography is taking the place of engraving for many valuable purposes in the rapid duplication of works of fine art. The progressive people of Glasgow have before signified their appreciation of photography for the purpose of art reproduction in the successive issues of photographs in connection with their Art Union. In the present instance, photography is applied on a more extensive scale for this purpose than on any previous occasion that we remember; and the picture will become historical in connection with photography as the first large issue, consisting of photographs of the largest size, ever produced by carbon printing.
The subject is one full of interest to every one who can admire heroic self-abnegation in the assertion of principle, and to Scotchmen will possess in especial value as an illustration of national character, whatever their especial views on the question at issue. It is a picture commemorative of the Disruption in the Church of Scotland in 1843. The subject is the "Signing of the Deed of Demission," painted by Mr. D. O. Hill, Secretary to the Royal Scottish Academy, a gentleman whoso name has been many years associated with a deep interest in the art capacity of photography, and with some of the most artistic calotype portraits ever produced. The picture contains nearly five hundred portraits of ministers of the Scotch Church, who gave up livings, manses, glebes in short, all the temporalities which their connection with the Church gave them in the assertion of liberty of conscience. Photographs of the picture will be issued in three sizes, ranging from 24 inches by 9 inches to 48 inches by 21 1/4 inches, at prices ranging from a guinea and a half to twelve guineas; and we believe a very handsome subscription list has already been obtained. The following extracts contain some details, which will be read with interest:
In 1843, when this work was projected, a prospectus of a high-priced engraving from it, in mixed mezzotint, in which the painter was pledged that his canvas would contain upwards of two hundred portraits, was issued, and subscribed largely for. The long delay, however, in the production of the picture, arising, in great measure, from its now greatly expanded plan, and the more than doubled number of portraits introduced, rendered the subscription list in a large measure unavailable; and as the execution of such an engraving, of any high degree of excellence, would involve another long and uncertain term of years, the whole scheme of an engraving has been abandoned.
The recent extraordinary advance of the science and practice of photography has suggested to the artist a more rapid and a more exquisite mode of reproduction than, in the circumstances, he could have hoped for from any engraver, however skilful; and after much careful consideration, and with high professional approval, he has entered into an arrangement with that admirable photographer, Mr. Thomas Annan, of Glasgow and Hamilton, for the rendering of his picture in several sizes of photographs, varying from 20 to 48 inches in breadth, lie will thus be enabled to supply copies of different sizes and prices, but all, as the specimens will show, of a style of photographic manipulation equally admirable, novel, and-extraordinary.
His negotiations with Mr. Annan were scarcely completed, when he was made aware by that gentleman of the perfecting of a process of printing in carbon, patented by Mr. Swan of Newcastle, which not only produces prints of a delicacy and power markedly superior to the best specimens of the old method of printing, but, by substituting carbon for the residuum of silver, secures the impressions from the chances of evanescence, and renders them as permanent, according to the highest chemical authority, as they are remarkable for delicacy, beauty, and power.
Mr. Annan having for this work commissioned, from the eminent optician, Mr. Dallmeyer, a large photographic camera of the latest and most perfect construction, has already produced from the picture a considerable number of negatives of consummate excellence, of which brilliant proofs in the old silver printing have been obtained of various sizes, and these are now exhibited along with the picture. But along-side of them is now shown "the first impression in permanent carbon printing," by Mr. Swan, produced by his patented process, which already, in his hands, seems to have reached the very acme of perfection.
It is worthy of notice, in passing, that the portraits made chiefly for this picture in 1843 by Mr. Hill and his late friend, Mr. Robert Adamson of St. Andrews, by the then newly-discovered photographic process of Mr. Fox Talbot, called the Calotype or Talbottype, but until then almost unknown or unapplied as a vehicle of artistic thought and expression, were mainly the means of first raising the process to the rank of a fine art, or rather to that of one of its most magical and potent auxiliaries. And it is a striking coincidence, that while the commencement of the picture was thus marked by the elevation and higher application of photography, its completion, by a combination of improved processes, seems destined to aid in the inauguration of a new era in the reproduction of works of art. And it may also be remarked that, long retarded as the completion of the picture has been, its translation and multiplication by photographs, so beautiful, and at the same time imperishable, even a few weeks or months earlier than the present time, could not, by any then existing means known to the artist, have been secured.
It may be here stated that economy had no place in the arrangements for abandoning the scheme of the engraving and adopting that of the photograph as a means of reproduction ; for besides the saving or years of anxious waiting, above referred to, the engraving of a large plate would, in the event of a wide circulation, have been a much less expensive undertaking than the printing of a great number of large photographs. It should also be stated that no impression will be issued that does not pass the approval of two gentlemen in Edinburgh eminent for their photographic knowledge, and who, by mutual arrangement between the painter and photographer, will have a veto on all impressions they shall consider not up to a high standard. On the other hand, it is a fact known to all practical photographers, that a comparatively small number "of the impressions come out with more than ordinary brilliance," which renders them as desirable acquisitions as are the artist's proofs of a high-class engraving; these, under the name of Selected Artist's Proofs, and properly guaranteed and signed as such, will be charged about a third more than the ordinary impressions, which, however, as has been before stated, will all be of a high class.
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