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Record Details

Photograph (Experimental Photogenic Drawing), by Sir John Herschel, 1839

Inventory Number: 72436
Object Type:
Persons: Sir John Frederick William Herschel (Photographer)
Date Created:
Accession Number: 1928-71
Brief Description: Experimental photogenic drawing by Sir John Herschel, undated but 1839. Untidily and unevenly brushed with a brown chemical, leaving gaps of bare paper and brush marks. There being no image, this would suggest the paper was merely a chemical test; but there is faint evidence of a border, which invariably indicates a copy of an engraving.

Subject: engraving, no image
Technique: contact copy???
Format: not apparent
Polarity: ???
Orientation: not apparent
Quality: no visible image, border???
Colour: brown, with gaps of plain paper, shows through back
Chemistry: silver based
Coating: none
Inscription: none
Paper: thin, larger than usual
Condition: good
Purpose: not apparent.

For fuller descriptive and historical commentary see narratives.
Provenance: Presented by Miss Herschel and Lady Lubbock in 1928. They were the two surviving and youngest children of Sir John Herschel (Francisca and Constance).
Collection Group: Herschel's Photographic Experiments
Material(s): Paper
Dimensions:
Height Width Depth Diameter Unit
108 158 mm

Narratives

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