Sebastiano Tassinari (Italian, 1814-1888)
1839-1840
[Photogenic Drawing from Leaf]

Salted paper prints
10.6 x 14 cm (4 3/16 x 5 1/2 ins) (irregularly trimmed)
 
Metropolitan Museum of Art
Harris Brisbane Dick Fund, 1936, Accession Number: 36.37 (44b)
 
Saunders, Beth. “The Rise of Paper Photography in Italy, 1839-55.” In Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2000-. (April 2017)
 
One of the earliest employments of paper photography anywhere is conserved in the Album di disegni fotogenici (Album of Photogenic Drawings), which contains thirty-six photogenic drawings (both photograms and prints from negatives made in a camera) alongside related correspondence sent by William Henry Fox Talbot (1800-1877) to his acquaintance Antonio Bertoloni (1775-1869), the Chair of Botany at the University of Bologna. Bertoloni compiled these photographic “specimens” into the album and reported the method to Italy's scientific community. Remarkably, the album also contains three photogenic drawings of plants made by Bertoloni's protégé, a chemist named Sebastiano Tassinari (1814-1888), that are the earliest examples of paper photographs made in Italy (36.37 (44b)).
 
LL/91576