Getty Museum

[Roofline of Margam Castle, the Home of C.R.M. Talbot]

Date

December 1839 ?

Medium

Salted paper print from a photogenic drawing negative fixed with iodide

Culture

British

Department

Photographs

Institution

Getty Museum

> At the end of 1839 William Henry Fox Talbot went to visit the newly built estate near Swansea of his Welsh cousin, Christopher Rice Mansel “Kit” Talbot, who was known as the wealthiest commoner in all of Britain. While there, he began practicing an activity that he speculated on in *Some Account of the Art of Photogenic Drawing* at the very beginning of that momentous year: > > > > “To the traveller in distant lands, who is ignorant, as too many unfortunately are, of the art of drawing, this little invention may prove of real service. And even to the artist himself, however skilful he may be. For, although this natural process does not produce an effect much resembling the productions of his pencil, & therefore cannot be considered as capable of replacing them, yet it is to be recollected that he may often be so situated as to be able to devote only a single hour to the delineation of some very interesting locality. Now since nothing prevents him from simultaneously disposing, in different positions, any number of these little cameræ, it is evident that their collective results, when examined afterwards, may furnish him with a large body of interesting memorials, & with numerous details which he had not himself time either to note down or to delineate.” > > > > > > The unusual trapezoidal shape of this image was a response to Talbot’s need to tilt the camera upward. In order to hide the resulting pyramidal form, he trimmed the negative, which still survives, to the present contours, keeping the sides of the paper parallel to the lines of the building. > > Larry Schaaf, *William Henry Fox Talbot*, In Focus: Photographs from the J. Paul Getty Museum (Los Angeles: Getty Publications, 2002), 26. ©2002 J. Paul Getty Trust.

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