2 April 1841

Patterned Bolster

I won’t say anything about bolstering your spirits on a Friday morning, but what a strange image this is. Unless one of our readers comes up with a posh Victorian term for this item, I think it is a bolster taken off a couch. But why a vertical? Talbot dated it in the negative at the top so I assume that this is the way that he envisioned this subject. Was it merely a detailed pattern for a lens test? A convenient indoor subject on a rainy day?

3 April 1841

Bridge over the River Avon at Lacock

As we have seen, Talbot discovered the calotype negative process in September 1840, only six months before this photograph. The bridge and the shimmery reflections in the water were subjects that Talbot returned to, perhaps somewhat out of convenience for its proximity to the Abbey, perhaps more for its intricate aspects of forms and tonalities. Talbot himself did the severe clipping of this negative before he sent prints to Sir John Herschel and others. Other than removing defective portions (and thereby calling more attention to them), no, I cannot fathom his intentions.

4 April 1841

Bust of Patroclus

There are more than sixty known views of Talbot’s favourite subject, often testing out the effects of light and different angles, but usually depicting all or most of the plaster cast with its base. Here we have a startling closeup with Patroclus staring defiantly directly into the camera lens. The pencil dating on the negative clearly shows through, just as Talbot expected. Why are the two corners cut diagonally? Talbot often pasted the negative paper directly onto the inside of the camera back for exposure, cruelly cutting the paper out afterwards. Was this a small enough sheet to merit only two dabs from the paste pot? This negative measures little over 5 x 3 cm.

5 April 1842

Nurse Holding Charles Henry Talbot, with Ela and Rosamond Talbot

The staff of a country house were not surprised by unusual requests from their sometimes eccentric masters, but Eliza Frayland had been in harness for only a month when she was pressed into service for this photograph. Had she seen enough photography at the point to know what was going on? Or did Henry hastily set up (perhaps at Lady Elisabeth’s insistence) to record a domestic scene that formed naturally? This print is in an album that Constance Talbot compiled and undoubtedly it was looked at often. As a consequence, it is faded, and I have digitally strengthened this reproduction so that you could enjoy it more. The ‘J Whatman 1841’ watermark is quite evident.

6 April 1842

Sharington’s Tower, Lacock Abbey

All of the images on this page have provable dates, recorded in Henry’s hand on the verso of the negatives in a spot conspicuous enough to show through on the final prints.

For the vast majority of Talbot’s photographs, the dating is not so straightforward. We would have to guess the approximate season by the bare trees but vigorous ivy. The more familiar views of the tower were published in The Pencil of Nature, but in those two variants, one or two ladders and open windows indicate maintenance activity by the staff. All is tranquil here.

7 April 1842

Nicolaas Henneman faces off with John Frederick Goddard over a game of chess

These two gentlemen have posed for us before in a photograph taken the day after this one. Goddard was a daguerreotype operator for Richard Beard and had greatly improved the sensitising process. A scientific colleague of Talbot, he visited Lacock Abbey with the intention of learning more about the calotype and perhaps in giving Talbot some chemical hints. With his phrenological-ready forehead, he also made a striking subject. Encouraged by the networks that her son was forming, but having no doubt about who was in charge, Lady Elisabeth recorded in her diary that “Mr Goddard came to learn about photography.”

8 April 1842

Lady Elisabeth Feilding, Henry’s mother