id: 156105 accession number: 1991.39 share license status: CC0 url: https://clevelandart.org/art/1991.39 updated: 2023-11-30 18:05:47.551000 Ancient Door, Magdalen College, Oxford, 1843. William Henry Fox Talbot (British, 1800–1877). Salted paper print from calotype negative; image: 16.1 x 20.5 cm (6 5/16 x 8 1/16 in.); paper: 19 x 22.8 cm (7 1/2 x 9 in.); matted: 30.6 x 35.6 cm (12 1/16 x 14 in.). The Cleveland Museum of Art, Andrew R. and Martha Holden Jennings Fund 1991.39 title: Ancient Door, Magdalen College, Oxford title in original language: series: series in original language: creation date: 1843 creation date earliest: 1843 creation date latest: 1843 current location: creditline: Andrew R. and Martha Holden Jennings Fund copyright: --- culture: England, 19th century technique: salted paper print from calotype negative department: Photography collection: PH - British 19th Century type: Photograph find spot: catalogue raisonne: --- CREATORS * William Henry Fox Talbot (British, 1800–1877) - artist William Henry Fox Talbot British, 1800-1877 Born in Melbury, Dorset, Fox Talbot was a gentleman of the 19th century who, like many others of his class, pursued leisure activities in the arts and sciences. He experimented with means for capturing permanently the elusive images formed on paper by the camera obscura, an instrument used as a drawing aid. After several years of varying results, Talbot successfully devised a process that chemically recorded the image made by light on a piece of paper. On February 21, 1839, one month after the announcement of Louis-Jacques-Mandé Daguerre's photographic process, Talbot presented his experiments to the Royal Society in London. Talbot's process differed greatly from that of Daguerre. Unlike the daguerreotype's sharply detailed image, the calotype, or Talbotype, was softly blurred; yet because the positive image was made from a negative, it had the advantage of multiple reproduction. This formed the basis of conventional photography. A graduate of Trinity College, Cambridge, Talbot was a man of scholarly and scientific bent whose interests included optics and botany. Before his work in photography, he also had published on mathematics and linguistics. He later played an important role in the deciphering of Assyrian and other cuneiform inscriptions of interest to biblical scholars. Talbot was made a Fellow of the Royal Society at age 32. He is credited with the first photographic negative, which still exists, a view of a set of windows at his home, Lacock Abbey. He invented a form of engraving that was a forerunner of photogravure, as well as other innovations in the quickly growing art form for which he was largely responsible. Talbot's The Pencil of Nature (1844-46) and Sun Pictures in Scotland (1845) are two of the earliest photographically illustrated books. T.W.F. --- measurements: Image: 16.1 x 20.5 cm (6 5/16 x 8 1/16 in.); Paper: 19 x 22.8 cm (7 1/2 x 9 in.); Matted: 30.6 x 35.6 cm (12 1/16 x 14 in.) state of the work: edition of the work: support materials: inscriptions: inscription: Written in ink on verso: "LA 129" translation: remark: --- CURRENT EXHIBITIONS title: Notable Acquisitions opening date: 1991-06-07T04:00:00 Notable Acquisitions. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (June 7-September 15, 1991). title: Legacy of Light: Seven Masters in Depth opening date: 1996-11-20T05:00:00 Legacy of Light: Seven Masters in Depth. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (November 20-February 2, 1996). --- LEGACY EXHIBITIONS * CMA, June 7 - September 15, 1991: "Notable Aquisitions," CMA Bulletin, 78 (June 1991), p. 89, repr.
CMA, November 20,1996 - February 2, 1997: "Legacy of Light: Seven Masters in Depth." --- PROVENANCE Family of the artist date: footnotes: citations: --- fun fact: digital description: wall description: --- RELATED WORKS --- CITATIONS Hinson, Tom E. "Notable Acquisitions." The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 78, no. 3 (1991): 63-147. page number: Reproduced and Mentioned: p. 89 url: https://www.jstor.org/stable/25161319 Cleveland Museum of Art, Tom E Hinson. Catalogue of Photography. Cleveland, OH: Cleveland Museum of Art, 1996. page number: Reproduced: P. 353 url: --- IMAGES web: https://openaccess-cdn.clevelandart.org/1991.39/1991.39_web.jpg print: https://openaccess-cdn.clevelandart.org/1991.39/1991.39_print.jpg full: https://openaccess-cdn.clevelandart.org/1991.39/1991.39_full.tif