This richly illustrated book tells the first full history of the calotype, embedding it in the social context that crucially formed it: Britain's changing fortunes, intricate class structure, ever-growing industrialization, and new spirit under Queen Victoria. Of the 118 early photographs presented here in meticulously printed plates, many have never before been published or exhibited. And the histories of 500 calotypists, most previously unknown, are detailed in the volume's biographical dictionary, a valuable work of far-reaching scholarship the further demonstrates the major role played by the paper negative in mid-nineteenth-century Britain.
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When photography appeared shortly before 1840, the metal-plate daguerreotype, invented in France, was first to achieve popularity. But the process simultaneously developed in England for capturing an image on a paper negativefrom which many positives could be printedprovided the foundation on which photography would build for the next 150 years.This beautiful book presents more than 120 photographs printed from paper negatives, or calotypes, most never before published. The entire course of the paper negative’s golden age” is described, from its laborious invention by William Henry Fox Talbot to competition with French photographers and commercial practitioners. Aesthetically ambitious, these richly textured calotypes were created by photographers both eminent and virtually unknown. Also included is an invaluable biographical dictionary of more than 500 British calotypists.
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