
Copy Print From "Celebrated Inscriptions Ancient Eugubine Tablets"
<p>When William Henry Fox Talbot, one of the inventors of photography, presented his initial findings in January 1839, he proposed a variety of applications for his new discovery, which he called “photogenic drawing.” He presciently detailed how it could be used for portraits, landscape, architecture, and depictions of objects seen in the microscope—but also as a tool for copying drawings and engravings. Here Talbot—an expert in ancient languages as well as chemistry—photographically reproduced a page showing a copy of inscriptions in a native Umbrian alphabet from one of seven ancient bronze tablets discovered in Italy in the 15th century.</p>
Catalogue
- Year
- 1839
- Medium
- Salted paper print
- Dimensions
- Image: 19.9 × 14.2 cm (7 7/8 × 5 5/8 in.); Paper: 22.9 × 19 cm (9 1/16 × 7 1/2 in.)
- Collection
- Art Institute of Chicago
- Artist
- William Henry Fox Talbot
Artist

Photography
William Henry Fox Talbot was an English scientist, inventor, and photography pioneer who invented the salted paper and calotype processes, precursors to photographic processes of the later 19th and 20th centuries. His work in the 1840s on photomechanical reproduction led to the creation of the photoglyphic engraving process, the precursor to photogravure. He was the holder of a controversial patent that affected the early development of commercial photography in Britain. He was also a noted photographer who contributed to the development of photography as an artistic medium. He published The Pencil of Nature (1844–1846), which was illustrated with original salted paper prints from his calotype negatives and made some important early photographs of Oxford, Paris, Reading, and York.
Full artist profile →More
More by William Henry Fox Talbot
Untitled
1864 · Photoglyphic engraving employing resin ground
Wheat
1854 · Photoglyphic engraving
Fern
1852 · photogravure
Untitled
1852 · Photoglyphic engraving
Furness Abbey
1848 · Photoglyphic engraving
Branch of a Fern
1848 · Photoglyphic engraving made without a gauze or resin ground screen
Record
Verified by WattsOS- Artist
- William Henry Fox Talbot
- Year
- 1839
- Medium
- Salted paper print
- Dimensions
- Image: 19.9 × 14.2 cm (7 7/8 × 5 5/8 in.); Paper: 22.9 × 19 cm (9 1/16 × 7 1/2 in.)
- Watts ID
- WW-1839-024324
Source
- Collection
- Art Institute of Chicago
- Source
- aic
- Reference
- View at source
- Status
- verified





