 |
Register Subscribe Login |
Many of our readers will have seen the 'Articles of China' in The Pencil of Nature. Talbot observed there that From the specimen here given it is sufficiently manifest, that the whole cabinet of a collector might be depicted on paper in little more time than it would take him to make a written inventory and would a thief afterwards purloin the treasuresif the mute testimony of the picture were to be produced against him in courtit would certainly be evidence of a novel kind . The articles represented on this plate are numerous: but, however numerous the objectshowever complicated the arrangementthe Camera depicts them all at once.
Talbot returned to this theme again and again, often using his 'peripatetic shelves.' In most cases we have no way of reliably dating these but I think it is safe to assume that his production of this sort of image peaked during the years 1842-1844. The negative for this was waxed for printing, bringing additional sharpness and brightness to the glazed surfaces. Some examples of this image are printed on paper watermarked J Whatman Turkey Mill Paper 1839 - his stocks of that vintage would have dwindled over the years, implying that this image was printed not too long after the discovery of the calotype in September 1840, but another example is printed on 1845 watermarked paper, implying that the image stayed in favour for some time, perhaps being sold by Nicolaas Henneman.