Section B: Daguerreotype and Talbotype; Early Photographic Artists in Brighton (1851-1854)

The Brighton Talbotype Portrait Gallery at W H Mason's Repository of Arts, 108 King's Road, Brighton.



The Talbotype - an alternative to the Daguerreotype in Brighton

In 1839, the same year that Daguerre announced his method of fixing images on a silvered copper plate,
William Henry Fox Talbot, an English landowner, scholar and scientist published 'The Art of Photogenic Drawing', an account of how he had managed to capture images permanently on paper. Four years earlier, Talbot had produced tiny photographic views of Lacock Abbey, his home in Wiltshire. By treating the small pictures with wax, Talbot was able to use them as negatives and print further copies. Although he had invented a negative/positive photographic process, Talbot's early pictures were small, required very long exposure times and lacked the sharpness of detail and brilliance of the daguerreotype. Talbot continued his experiments and improved the quality of his photographs by coating his paper with silver iodide and developing the images with a gallo-nitrate of silver solution. Talbot patented his new process in February 1841, describing his pictures as 'Calotypes'. Talbot protected his photographic inventions by filing a number of all-embracing patents.

Under pressure from the Royal Academy and the Royal Society, Talbot had, in August 1852, relaxed his control over the production of calotypes, allowing amateurs and artists to use the process, but he insisted that all professional photographers who wanted to use his calotype process for taking portraits had to purchase a licence, which usually involved an annual fee of between £100 and £150.

In 1852, Thomas Henry Hennah, a young London artist, together with William Henry Kent, a photographic artist from the Isle of Wight, purchased a licence from William Fox Talbot to make portraits using the calotype process. The photographic prints were called 'Talbotypes' in honour of the inventor. By 1854, Hennah and Kent had established a Talbotype Portrait Gallery in William Henry Mason's Repository of Arts at 108 King's Road, Brighton.
An item in the 'Brighton Gazette' of 12th October 1854 indicates that the Talbotype Gallery specialised in taking portraits of the nobility and the upper ranks of society. The 'Brighton Gazette' enumerates "a few of the distinguished persons who have recently honoured these eminently skilful artists with a sitting", listing the Duke of Devonshire, Countess Granville, Lord Carnworth, Lady Keats and several other notable visitors to Brighton. Hennah & Kent came into direct competition with William Constable who in July 1854 joined forces with another daguerreotype artist, Edward Collier at 58 Kings Road to form the firm of Constable & Collier.

Robert Farmer, who made his living mainly from taking daguerreotype portraits, placed advertisements during November and December of 1853, which drew attention to his "Calotype views of the Pavilion, The Railway Terminus etc taken by Gustave Le Gray's new waxed paper process." [Farmer's advertisement would have annoyed William Fox Talbot who claimed Le Gray's waxed paper process was an infringement of his patent of 1843.]

 

Craven's Locomotive No12 with John Chester Craven,his family and staff at Lover's Walk,Brighton (May 1858) A talbotype had less detail than a daguerreotype and the print often had a fuzzy and mottled appearance.



Stephen Grey and William Hall, who established their General Photographic Institution at 13 St James Street in the summer of 1854, offered to take portraits "by all the most recent and improved processes by 'Licence of the Patentees'. Large sized Talbotype portraits mounted in a gilt frame were offered at 15 shillings (75p), while daguerreotype portraits were priced from 6 shillings (30p).


Amateurs and artists who wished to use Talbot's invention could turn to Lewis Dixey, optician and mathematical instrument maker of 21 Kings Road, Brighton, who supplied "every description of photographic apparatus for the Calotype" and iodized paper for the Talbotype.

 


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Website last updated: 23 December, 2002

 

This website is dedicated to the memory of Arthur T. Gill (1915-1987), Sussex Photohistorian

 




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