Lace
1844/45
Medium
Salted paper print
Dimensions
Image: 18.6 × 22.8 cm (7 3/8 × 9 in.); Paper: 18.6 × 22.5 cm (7 3/8 × 8 7/8 in.)
Classification
salted paper print
Department
Photography and Media
Museum
Art Institute of Chicago
Accession Number
27066
Rights
Public Domain
About this artwork
William Henry Fox Talbot, one of the inventors of photography, was a polymath who felt as comfortable writing Greek verse as he did experimenting with botany and chemistry. His negative/positive process—and the reproductive possibilities it engendered—came to dominate photography until the digital age. Talbot held artistic aspirations, but he was also interested in the myriad scientific and commercial applications for photography. He hoped that his photographs of lace, for example, might make it...
About the Artist
William Henry Fox Talbot · 1800–1877
William Henry Fox Talbot (1800–1877), a British polymath whose ingenuity transformed visual representation, was born on 11 February 1800 at Melbury House, Dorset, the only child of William Davenport Talbot of Lacock Abbey and Lady Elisabeth Fox Strangways, daughter of the 2nd Earl of Ilchester. His father died shortly after his birth, leaving the family in financial straits until his formidable mo...