Artist

Talbot, Henry Fox

Title

Kit Talbot and Lady Charlotte Talbot at Lacock Abbey

Technique

photographic print

Date

1982

Dimensions

39.7cm height x 31.0cm width

Type

print

Accession Number

EC2016.3.4

Collection

Education Collection

Gift of Bill Jeffries

Henry Fox Talbot was a British scientist, inventor and photography pioneer, who invented the salted paper and calotype processes. In 1835, he created the earliest surviving photographic negative, taken of a small window at his home, Lacock Abbey, Wiltshire, UK. In order to recoup the costs of his research (approximately £5000), he protected his technique with a controversial patent. When the patent expired in 1854 and in the face of much public pressure, he did not seek to renew the patent. Talbot was also a specialist in ancient Mesopotamia and, with Sir Henry Rawlinson and Dr. Edward Hincks, was one of the first decipherers of the cuneiform inscriptions of Nineveh.