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Photogenic Drawing On Offer At Sotheby’s, Previously Attributed To William Henry Fox Talbot, Is Reconsidered
INTRIGUING EARLY PHOTOGRAPHIC IMAGE
PHOTOGENIC DRAWING ON OFFER AT SOTHEBY’S, PREVIOUSLY ATTRIBUTED TO WILLIAM HENRY FOX TALBOT, IS RECONSIDERED
LEADING TALBOT SCHOLAR SPECULATES WORK COULD BE BY THOMAS WEDGWOOD,
DATING FROM 1805 OR EARLIER
SUCH AN ATTRIBUTION, IF CONFIRMED, WOULD MAKE THIS ONE OF THE MOST IMPORTANT DISCOVERIES PERTAINING TO THE HISTORY OF PHOTOGRAPHY
New York, New York - On the evening of April 7th, 2008, Sotheby’s will offer a photogenic drawing previously attributed to William Henry Fox Talbot, which leading photo historian and Talbot authority Dr. Larry J. Schaaf speculates could be instead by Thomas Wedgwood, an early photographic experimenter, or a member of his circle. Such an authorship, if confirmed, would make this photogenic drawing one of the most important discoveries in the history of photography. The vivid Leaf is one of six similar anonymous photogenic drawings originally housed in an album belonging to Henry Bright of England, which were sold individually at Sotheby’s London in 1984. Purchased by dealer Hans P. Kraus, Jr., who subsequently attributed the work to William Henry Fox Talbot, circa 1839, the Leaf was then sold to Jill Quasha, a private photography dealer representing the Quillan Company, in 1989. Dr. Schaaf has since questioned the Talbot attribution and has explored other possibilities of authorship, including Thomas Wedgwood and his associates. This photograph, which is credited in Sotheby’s catalogue as “Photographer Unknown,” will now appear at auction as part of The Quillan Collection of Nineteenth and Twentieth Century Photographs, a choice offering of some of the most sophisticated photographic works ever brought together in one collection.
When Sotheby’s experts Denise Bethel and Christopher Mahoney began researching the photographs in the Quillan Collection, they consulted Dr. Larry J. Schaaf, one of the foremost scholars in the field, about the photogenic drawing. Dr. Schaaf’s opinion is that the Leaf, as well as the others from the Bright album, is not, in fact, by William Henry Fox Talbot, but possibly by an even earlier practitioner, Thomas Wedgwood among them.
Denise Bethel, Director of Sotheby’s Photographs department, said: “In the annals of the history of photography, there are a number of things that we know existed at one time, but are now lost-daguerreotypes of California by Vance, for instance, or daguerreotypes made across the United States by J. Wesley Jones. We know that there were photographic experiments that preceded Talbot and Daguerre, and it is exciting to entertain the possibility that the photogenic drawing in the Quillan Collection could be one such thing.”
In his detailed catalogue entry for the Quillan Collection’s photogenic drawing, Dr. Schaaf outlines the possibility that the author of this piece might be Thomas Wedgwood (1771-1805), a member of the Wedgwood china family, who is known to have experimented in the late 18th and early 19th centuries with primitive forms of photography, such as the photogenic drawing. Wedgwood’s photographic experiments substantially pre-date those of William Henry Fox Talbot and Louis-Jacques-Mandé Daguerre, who are considered the fathers of the medium. While Wedgwood’s photographic experiments are documented in the scientific literature of the day, and are cited in the standard histories of photography, no examples of his photographs have ever been identified. As Dr. Schaaf writes in the Sotheby’s catalogue, ‘Sometime in the 1790s, Thomas Wedgwood began his experiments in trying to secure solar pictures. He gave up on cameras and instead concentrated on photograms, placing leaves and other objects on silver nitrate coated paper and white leather to form negative images, much the same as Talbot was to do several decades later.’ An account of Wedgwood’s experiments was published in 1802 by his friend Humphry Davy, who lamented, however, that attempts to ‘fix,’ or make the photographs permanent, had up to that time failed; but decades later, in 1885, Samuel Highly, a Fellow of the Chemical Society and editor of a photographic journal, published an article in which he states that he had seen examples of Wedgwood’s work.
Dr. Schaaf bases his speculation on the Leaf’s authorship upon two things: the Henry Bright provenance of the six photogenic drawings sold by Sotheby’s in 1984; and markings on the Leaf and four of the other photogenic drawings from the Bright album, each of which is inscribed with the initial ‘W’.
As regards provenance, the Leaf comes originally from an album belonging to one Henry Bright (b. 1784), whose prominent, scientifically-inclined family in Bristol, England, would have provided the perfect milieu for connections to Wedgwood and other early photographic experimenters. In addition to the six photogenic drawings, the album also contained photographs by other early British photographers, including a rare cliché verre by Sir John Herschel. Schaaf paints an engaging picture of Henry Bright’s father, Richard Bright, Senior (1754 - 1840), a merchant adventurer with a decidedly scientific bent. A member of several learned societies, Bright Senior would have been characterized in his day as a ‘gentleman scientist’: he studied chemistry, for instance, and published on geology; he erected a tide gauge on his property and was a founder of the Bristol Institution for the Advancement of Literature and the Arts; he converted his garden’s gazebo into a research laboratory, and encouraged his children to collect and categorize natural specimens. His sons Henry and Richard, Jr., were sent to a prestigious Bristol school, where their fellow pupils had names such as Wedgwood, Priestly, and Watt; Richard Bright, Jr., later became a distinguished doctor who was known as the father of nephrology.
Among Bright Senior’s circle of friends was Sir Thomas Beddoes, who founded the Pneumatic Clinic in Bristol, where Thomas Wedgwood, who had moved to Bristol to be cured of consumption, was a patient. The staff at the Pneumatic Clinic also provides Dr. Schaaf with another possible attribution of authorship: Schaaf speculates that the Leaf could also have been made by Humphry Davy, a local apothecary’s assistant who was put in charge of Dr. Beddoes’s laboratory, and who, as mentioned above, wrote an account of his friend Thomas Wedgwood’s photographic experiments. Humphry Davy was a close friend of Richard Bright, Jr., adding another link in this intricate chain of associations to the Bright family. One of Davy’s and Bright Junior’s mutual friends, James Watt (1736 - 1819), experimented with photography himself: in 1799, Watt wrote to Thomas Wedgwood, thanking him ‘for your direction for the silver pictures, on which when at home I shall try some experiments.’ Based on this letter, Schaaf expands his range of possible authors of the Leaf to include James Watt, whose last name also begins, tantalizingly, with a ‘W.’
As Dr. Schaaf writes, the Bright family’s ‘close proximity and social connection to Wedgwood and Davy yields the most interesting speculation.’ As his detailed catalogue essay (available upon request) makes clear, the generally accepted chronology of the history of photography, which begins for the layman in 1839, is far more complex: there are a number of early experimenters whose work has yet to be located, but who experimented nonetheless. In weighing possible authors of the Leaf, Dr. Schaaf asks: ‘Could the “W” be Wedgwood’s identification? Did Richard Bright, the father, produce or collect these long before the 1839 public announcement? Did Richard Bright, Henry’s brother, get them from Davy? . . . . In spite of the fact that a suitable fixer eluded Thomas Wedgwood and his friend Humphrey Davy, could images protected from much exposure to light survive from the time of Wedgwood? Yes they could.’ Schaaf concludes: “No examples of Wedgwood’s work have yet been identified in any collection, so if these six eventually prove to be by him, they may be the only survivors of this seminal idea.’
The Quillan Collection of Nineteenth and Twentieth Century Photographs
A true connoisseur’s collection of rare and unique images in superb condition, The Quillan Collection of Nineteenth and Twentieth Century Photographs would be impossible to recreate today. The collection of 69 photographs, ranging in date from the early 1800s to 1985, culminated in the book, The Quillan Collection of Nineteenth and Twentieth Century Photographs, published in 1991. By the time of Sotheby’s auction, the collection will have been held by the current owners for nearly twenty years. The Quillan Collection, which will be on view at Sotheby’s from April 2nd to 7th, is estimated to bring $5/7.5 million*. The auction will be on the evening of April 7th.
*Estimates do not include buyer’s premium
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