TAYLOR, ALFRED SWAINE | Early "photogenic drawing" photograph of a fern, dated on the verso by Taylor, 2 December 1839

Property from the Eric C. Caren Collection

TAYLOR, ALFRED SWAINE

Early "photogenic drawing" photograph of a fern, dated on the verso by Taylor, 2 December 1839

Photogenic drawing (4 3/8 x 3 1/8 in.; 112 x 81 mm), inscribed on verso, "Decr 2 H Lime 1839" The consignor has independently obtained a letter of authenticity from PSA that will accompany the lot.

A remarkable photographic incunable by a contemporary of Henry Fox Talbot.

Alfred Swaine Taylor is best known as the "father of British forensic medicine," but he was an important figure in the beginnings of photography as well (for more on Taylor, see the following lot). He was intrigued by photography from the time of its invention, and like Talbot employed "salted paper" to make his earliest images. "Talbot's discovery—making a negative in-camera and using that negative to make multiple prints—is the basis of all photography to this day and its cultural importance cannot be overestimated" (Christina Z. Anderson, Salted Paper Printing: A Step-by-Step Manual Highlighting Contemporary Artists, 2018). 

Though inspired by Talbot, Taylor developed his own processes, including the use of hyposulphate of lime as a fixing agent (note the annotation "H Lime" on the verso of the present photogenic drawing. In 1840, Taylor memorialized his photographic experimentation the pamphlet publication On the Art of Photographic Drawing.