Experimental Metallic Surfaces and Absent Images: On the Materiality of William Henry Fox Talbot’s Photomechanical Practice

1 Talbot’s Photomechanical Practice

Talbot is well known as a wealthy gentleman of science.^[15] In 1839 he was recognised by the scientific community as the British inventor of photography and, two years later, in 1841, of the positive/negative process on paper, which he dubbed the “calotype”.^[16] A lesser-known facet of his work which ran parallel to his photochemical research from the late 1840s until his death in 1877 involved metal and ink.^[17] All the plates I discuss in this article belong to this latter part of Talbot’s photographic work. With the photographic and photoglyphic engraving processes, Talbot aimed to make images that would maintain the ‘natural’ appearance of chemical photographs and have the stability of ink prints from engraved or etched metal plates, mainly steel. The overall objective of Talbot’s research on ink and metal photography was to provide permanent photographs and enduring printing plates compatible with period technologies that were able to support the high demand for prints. In comparison to daguerreotypes – which were singular objects and, due to their metallic support, could not be bound in publications – and salted paper prints (a paper-based chemical process), ink prints were more stable and, consequently, less subject to fading. These characteristics, together with the possibility of having a higher number of reproductions from the same printing plate, made Talbot’s experimentation in photomechanical printing appealing, especially for the printing and book industries. However, despite Talbot’s efforts – lasting almost four decades – his photographic and photoglyphic engraving patents were never commercialised, and he was the sole practitioner actively using them. Even if these processes are considered unsuccessful in practice and history, their study opens important considerations about the materiality of Talbot’s experimental practice and how materials reflected his evolving idea of the ‘photographic’.

Before analysing the metal plates in the Bodleian Libraries, it is important to provide a brief technical description of the processes and the materials Talbot employed, as the practical and material aspects of his experiments are key to my argument.^[18] Both the photographic and photoglyphic engraving techniques started with Talbot covering a clean and well-bevelled metal plate (steel, copper, zinc, or steel-faced copper) with an emulsion of bichromated gelatine that had photosensitive properties. A flat natural object, or a paper or glass photograph, was laid on the gelatine, blocked in a traditional printing frame, and exposed for a period of time that varied from half a minute to five minutes, depending on the amount of sunlight. To enhance the detail of the impression, natural objects were often moistened so that they became heavier, and every detail would come into contact with the photosensitive gelatine, while paper photographs were waxed to increase their transparency. After this operation – also known as contact printing – a photographic impression became visible on the gelatine layer covering the plate. This concluded what Talbot called the “photographic part” of the process.^[19] After being exposed, the portions of the gelatine layer that had been hit by the sun rays became hard and of a dark brown colour while the parts covered by the object remained yellow and were easily washed off under water. Talbot would then pour on the plate a water-based etching solution (bichloride of platina in the photographic engraving and perchloride of iron in the photoglyphic engraving) to etch the design photographically impressed on the gelatine. The plate was washed again with water to eliminate any remnants of etchants and used as a standard printing plate: it was warmed (usually with a lamp), inked, wiped off, and passed through the printing press to produce an ink print (figs. 2 – 3). As obtaining photographic halftones was the most challenging aspect of the processes, Talbot developed two techniques. In the photographic engraving process, he patented the “photographic veil”, a screen usually made of various thicknesses of gauze which gave a uniform texture to the subjects, with the advantage of distributing the ink more equally during the inking and wiping phases (as seen in fig. 3).^[20] In the photoglyphic engraving process, Talbot applied dusted resin directly on the metal plate with the same aim of the “photographic veil” of texturizing the plate before the photographic impression was made.^[21]

2

William Henry Fox Talbot, Fern, ca. 1852, photographic engraving, steel plate, 10.2 × 7 cm. Bradford, National Science and Media Museum, acc. no. 1937-443

3

William Henry Fox Talbot (photographer), George Barclay (printer), Fern, ca. 1852, photographic engraving, print, 20.5 × 15 cm. Bradford, National Science and Media Museum, acc. no. 1937-5080

Even if the processes involved a great deal of photographic chemistry, techniques, and materials, they also drew on materials and techniques from the printing and printmaking industry. There is, however, a crucial aspect to stress: in both the photographic and photoglyphic engraving, Talbot worked exclusively on the marking of the metal plate, applying the design (or image) with photographic chemistry, and etching it with chemical compounds. He was not involved in the printing of the plate, as this delicate and extremely technical phase was left to “practical hands”, in other words to the printers who assisted Talbot – mainly George Barclay, Thomas Brooker, and the Banks family business.^[22] Hence, the plates and their metallic surfaces were the actual testing ground of Talbot’s processes, the focus of all his attention. However, despite their relevance and the fact that these were the only ‘authorial’ objects made by Talbot’s hands, these experimental printing plates are largely under-researched. By contrast, prints that were ‘final’ photographic products intended for sale and circulation have garnered far more attention, both in studies and digitalization projects.^[23]

In the specific case of the Talbot Archive, the description and study of the plates are complicated by several elements, including the absence of printed images and, in most cases, the absence of any images at all.^[24] Because these objects struggle to fit into the conventional categories of artworks, such as ‘unique’ and ‘original’, they often defy the standards of historiographies, museums, and art markets. Consequently, they fall into the grey area of photographic collections, disconnected from the production process that could otherwise restore their meaning as material traces of Talbot’s experimental practice in the making of new ink-photographic processes. Either “blank” or carriers of illegible images, the Bodleian plates cast light on the making and designing of Talbot’s photomechanical experiments. With their presence, the plates allow us to address objects and practices that are usually absent from photographic history, such as remnants, unused or working material, experimental processes, and failed attempts.

2 The Bodleian Plates: Experimental Surfaces

Now that the technical background related to Talbot’s photomechanical processes has been addressed, we can move on to analysing the Bodleian plates. To begin with, it is essential to emphasise the exceptional nature of this archive. The Talbot Archive holds 106 metal plates, the vast majority of which, as highlighted by the inventory descriptions, are completely blank or severely rusted. These plates are different from the other plates that belonged to Talbot, held largely by the NSMM, where the engravings are well visible and the plates in better condition. The photoengravings on the NSMM plates, often accompanied by their respective prints, depict buildings, portraits, manuscripts, and contact printing images of natural objects like leaves (as seen in fig. 2). Talbot tested a wide range of subjects, and even if the NSMM plates have some rust and scratches, they are in good condition overall – it is possible to study all surfaces, both recto and verso. If these plates can successfully be approached with an interest in the visual content of the engravings, the same does not apply to the Bodleian plates where images are absent, and the recto of the plate is not always accessible due to rust damage or protective paper stuck to the plates. To interpret these plates, we need to approach Talbot’s photomechanical work as a crafted experimental practice, where materials as well as scientific and practical knowledge intertwine to pave the way for the design of a new process.

The Bodleian plates must be understood as experimental surfaces, kept by Talbot as records of his trials, a material archive of his photomechanical practice. Experimental plates (fig. 4) are complex objects to analyse and may be described in the inventory as generically as “26 [blank?] steel plates”.^[25] However, if we look closer, even though the large majority of this particular plate is blank, we can still see the photographic engraving of a fern on the left-hand side, almost entirely covered by rust. From this detail, it is clear that the plate was one of the numerous tests Talbot carried out during his photomechanical practice, many of which, especially in the late 1840s and early 1850s, focused on flat natural objects. Its damaged surface presents the condition of most of the plates in the Talbot Archive, posing a challenge to both scholars and the institution in charge of their conservation.

4

William Henry Fox Talbot, Fern, ca. 1852, photographic engraving, steel plate, stamp on the verso of Hughes & Kimber, London, 10 × 13 cm. Oxford, Bodleian Libraries, MS WHF Talbot 87

It is indeed quite unusual to encounter such an extensive collection of experimental material associated with a renowned practitioner that, despite lacking visible traces of their work or presenting extended damage, has been preserved. Metal plates (whether made of steel or copper) were relatively costly materials and consequently valuable goods. Among engravers it was customary to rework plates that had not yielded successful results by re-etching or re-engraving the surface, a practice that the physical properties of the material easily accommodated.^[26] Even finished engraved plates were not always immune to alteration or destruction. Due to the value of the material, there was an important secondhand market of printing plates. After the death of a practitioner or the end of their business, the plates were often sold to other engravers who could utilise part of the existing design or re-engrave them with new images. Taking these factors into account, it becomes evident that original nineteenth-century metal plates are rare objects to find in pristine or even good condition – or to find at all in the archives. Encountering such a large collection of metal plates in poor state and without visible photographic impressions provokes questions about why this material was preserved at all and what their place within Talbot’s photographic work might be. We are not faced with the casual survival of a few blank plates, but rather with more than a hundred kept apart from the other (more polished) engraved plates produced by Talbot in the NSMM.

Key to Talbot’s practice was the retention of all plates, both engraved and blank. As Larry Schaff has pointed out, from a young age, Talbot demonstrated a self-aware attitude towards keeping objects related to him, as exemplified by the 1808 letter of an eight-year-old Talbot instructing his stepfather to “[t]ell Mamma & everybody I write to keep my letters & not burn them”.^[27] Talbot’s descendants maintained the same attitude, contributing to the creation of vast and heterogeneous collections documenting Talbot’s activities in a variety of fields.^[28] In addition to the approximately 100 blank and damaged plates, the materials housed in various Talbot collections include letters, notebooks, photographs, ephemera, small sculptures, and much more.^[29]

In the specific case of Talbot’s photomechanical practice, his engraved plates served as specimens and records of his tests. Unlike the archives of commercial engravers or printmakers, it is evident that Talbot did not retain these metal plates for the purpose of printing from them, as none of his plates had a commercial purpose.^[30] Therefore, this is not an archive of printing plates available for recurring use. Instead, it is an archive of experiments, material notes preserved by Talbot as references of past trials. Each of these plates owes its existence to the experimental, work-in-progress nature of the photographic and photoglyphic engraving processes. The plates are a sort of working material, to expand on Omar Nasim’s notion of “working images” which address the in-between phases of image editing and making prior to their circulation in the public sphere.^[31] In a similar way, for Talbot, his experimental plates were essential to achieve the finished product, which was not only a paper print but a new photomechanical process to patent. They were, therefore, a site of knowledge making and experimentation. When we look at the metal plates as a single body of work rather than focusing on their individual visual content, we see how each of them was a crucial part of the designing and thinking of the experimental process. Every plate marked the test of a method, a material, or the combination of both, reflecting the objective of Talbot’s research: an effective way to reproduce photographic halftones and images in ink, on a large scale, where the image was made by photography alone.

Throughout his life, Talbot kept notebooks and loose notes related to many aspects of his scientific research. Particularly important for us are his notebooks on photographic experimentation.^[32] However, the plates in the Talbot Archive suggest that for him it was not enough to keep the research notes of the experiments with the written outcome of the trials and related observations. It was essential to also keep the plates and the proofs as they were material notes, complementary to the written account. It is useful to consider Talbot’s archive, the one he assembled during his lifetime, which is now spread across several institutions and private collections, as what Kelley Wilder has called an “hybrid expanded notebook”, an ensemble of heterogeneous working material able to cast light on scientists’ way of learning and observing while creating and accumulating material traces of their practices.^[33] In Talbot’s archive, written research notes were closely connected, sometimes physically, with photographic objects such as metal plates, which were integral to his practice of observing and recording experiments. In particular, Talbot’s loose notes concerning his photomechanical experiments are spread across several collections, mainly the NSMM (uncatalogued MS) and the British Library, making it difficult to study this material and, potentially, to connect it with photographic objects.^[34] What appears clear, however, is that from the late 1850s onwards, the close connection between written records and photographic objects became even more evident as Talbot established a system to number his experiments and link test records with the experiments themselves (proofs and plates).^[35] We do not know if Talbot kept the metal plates together with notes and proofs, as this information was lost during the acquisition and rehousing of this material. However, it seems likely that they were originally held together, since a few plates in the NSMM have been found with small technical notes enclosed with them. For Talbot, the metal plates were a physical trace and reference of what worked and what did not, a map of the different ideas and directions that his experiments took over time. They were there, accessible, stored in a relatively safe way, to serve as his personal working archive of his development of the photographic and photoglyphic engraving processes while he was still experimenting on them.

3 Unpacking the Materiality of the Bodleian Plates

The Talbot Archive stores both plates used and ruined by chemical and mechanical damage as well as a few dozen plates that appear not to have been used. Several plates are wrapped in a thick, rough, light brown-yellowish paper, and then, in direct contact with the plate, a thinner, very delicate yellowing paper. It is conceivable that the plates stored in such a way – with a great deal of attention to preserve the plate’s polished surface – came directly from the manufacturers and were never used. The reasons for this could be multiple; perhaps it was the rust spots, which developed after the plates were shipped to Talbot and made the surface unusable.

The Talbot Archive also yields crucial information about how the original plates were packaged when they came into Talbot’s possession. An example is the presence of one block of plates of the same size (10 × 13 cm), wrapped in thick protective paper as previously described, and tied together by a string (fig. 5). This specific group of twelve plates has probably never been opened since they entered the Bodleian collections, as it is not possible to untie the bundle and access their surfaces without compromising the original wrapping. Complex objects like these raise unanswerable questions about why Talbot preserved them, about the presence or absence of images on the inaccessible surfaces of these plates, and about how we can use such material to shed new light on our understanding of Talbot’s photographic work.

5

Block of 12 steel plates wrapped in paper and tied with a cord, stamp on the verso of Hughes & Kimber, London, 10 × 13 cm. Oxford, Bodleian Libraries, MS WHF Talbot 86

Blank plates are indeed a good example of how photographic history can productively engage non-representational visual information. Take, for instance, the 7,5 × 10,5 cm steel plate produced, as the stamp on the verso reveals, by the manufacturers Hughes & Kimber of London (figs. 6a – b).^[36] Throughout their decades-long business, the manufacturers relocated multiple times, and the address engraved on the stamp, 5 Red Lion Passage, Fleet St, allows us to date the plate between 1856 and 1862. This time frame is compatible with Talbot’s experimentation concerning his second photomechanical patent, and Hughes & Kimber were one of his main suppliers. As Talbot recalled in a letter to his cousin Emma Thomasina Llewelyn – who took an interest in Talbot’s photomechanical processes and began experimenting herself in the late 1850s – it was not easy to find highly polished steel plates of good quality for engraving.^[37] In the same letter, Talbot confirmed Hughes & Kimber as his main suppliers, stressing, however, that he was “not quite satisfied” with the surface of their steel plates, probably referring to the fact that the edges were not bevelled, and the surface not perfectly burnished.^[38] The issue with sharp edges was that it was more difficult to wipe off the excess of ink, as the edges created a relief and there was a risk the practitioner as well as the paper might get cut when the plates were passed under the printing press.

6a – b

Verso (a) and recto (b) of a waxed steel plate with bevelled edges, stamp on the verso of Hughes & Kimber, London, 10 × 13 cm. Oxford, Bodleian Libraries, MS WHF Talbot 67

My interpretation of the reason for Talbot’s dissatisfaction with the manufacture of the plates is confirmed by various invoices, from both plate manufacturers and printers, concerning additional costs for burnishing, tarnishing, and bevelling.^[39] In a letter addressed to Talbot, the engraver and printer William Banks of Edinburgh highlighted how, judging from the stamp on the verso of Talbot’s plates (Hughes & Kimber, London), he was searching in the wrong location – that he was, in Banks’s words, “in the wrong quarter for steel” – pointing to Sheffield as the “true market for that article” instead.^[40]

Another important element to consider is the cost of this material, as steel plates were not cheap. For instance, in the 1850s, a 10 × 15 cm steel plate cost about three shillings, plus one shilling and six pennies for the bevelling. This was a relatively high price in comparison to a dozen 10 × 12 cm copper plates provided by the same sellers for thirteen shillings. Due to the cost of the material, Talbot cleaned off and engraved the plates multiple times. In this regard, particularly revealing are two invoices from Hughes & Kimber for cleaning off and repolishing, respectively, 64 and 100 steel plates for a total of seven pounds and fourteen shillings.^[41] Considering the cost of the plates and their maintenance before and after the engraving, steel plates contributed to making Talbot’s photographic engraving a relatively expensive process in comparison to his paper photography, especially in its experimental phase, which was characterised by countless trials.

As we start to see, even if these plates have no images on their surface, they are rich in information concerning Talbot’s experimental practice. We can glean further information by considering the plates’ material, steel, since it was not a random choice. From Talbot’s experimental loose notes and published accounts, we know that, between the late 1840s and 1850s, he experimented with a large variety of supports including glass, porcelain, copper, zinc, and lithographic stone. Each of these materials possessed unique properties and technological implications that significantly influenced Talbot’s photomechanical experiments. Steel started to be largely employed in the printmaking industries only during the second decade of the nineteenth century when several technical challenges in its manipulation were overcome.^[42] Indeed, its key property, hardness, was both a limit and a desideratum. If on the one hand steel plates could provide a long run of prints (likely thousands of impressions per plate), on the other it was more difficult to mark their surfaces, both mechanically and chemically. As a consequence, sharper tools and new techniques were developed in the 1820s, such as the ‘mixed method’ and the ‘steel engraving’ which combined both engraving and etching techniques. Talbot’s use of steel plates appears to be strictly linked with steel’s successful application in printmaking, especially for technical works, such as banknotes, which demanded longer print runs, all in high quality. It was probably the combination of the steel plates’ physical properties and their commercialisation within the printing industry that led Talbot to employ them in his photomechanical experiments.

The material of these printing plates seems to have been important to him, as it became a characteristic aspect of his processes. In several entries of his aforementioned loose notes, Talbot named the work-in-progress process “steel engraving” and, later, he even wrote directly about his choice of this material publicly. In a letter to the magazine Athenæum, he stated that he did not make use of “soft plates of silver or silvered copper, as in the daguerreotype”, but only steel plates so that “there can be no doubt of their durability”.^[43] In a previous letter published by the same magazine, Talbot referred to earlier experimenters who used etching or galvanised daguerreotypes, including Hippolyte Louis Fizeau, Alfred Donné, and Josef Berres.^[44] However, as Talbot pointed out, all three of these men’s experiments “had not been found in practice sufficiently successful”.^[45] This was partly due to technical factors, such as the softness of silvered copper printing plates, which limited the print run, as well as the quality and level of detail they allowed. For these reasons, plates printed from daguerreotypes were often retouched to enhance details and improve the overall quality of the prints, such as in the case of Fizeau’s plates published in Excursions Daguerriennes.^[46]

Bearing in mind others’ previous attempts, Talbot made a clear choice when designing his photomechanical processes, one that reflects how his concept of the ‘photographic’ translated from photochemical to ink and metal photography. In his experiments with steel plates, he did not employ any manual techniques to correct the image, even when it was defective. His plates were engraved only by the chemical action of several etching solutions of his making, while the image was reproduced through photographic chemistry. In fact, one of the key elements that characterised Talbot’s process was that no human hand was involved in the making of the photographic image on the printing plate. For this reason, all his plates were untouched by the burin, and most of the prints faithfully reproduced the ‘defects’ of the photographs, something that was often picked up and criticised by period observers, especially professional printmakers.^[47] As the prints of the photogenic drawing and calotype processes were “impressed by Nature’s hand” – to the exclusion of human hands – similarly, photographic and photoglyphic engravings were characterised by the same criterion.^[48] Whether on paper or steel, in Talbot’s work the photographic image was left untouched by any manual intervention that would reveal the hand of a maker.

As we have seen, a closer analysis of materials and ways of making adds an important layer to our understanding of Talbot’s experimental practice and the kind of knowledge it produced – despite the lack of images. If we look more closely at the surface of a typical “blank” plate (figs. 4, figs. 4, figs. 7–8) not only indicates the chemical damage that occurred over time but also, most likely, Talbot’s own mistake in storing the plates incorrectly, which created suitable conditions for rust to develop. The presence of rust on these plates is therefore a sign of Talbot’s engagement with the material, in this case, a serious mistake that critically compromised the engravings.

Another precaution against rust was wrapping paper (as in fig. 8), was Talbot’s own doing.

7

William Henry Fox Talbot, Apollo Belvedere, ca. 1852–1858, photographic engraving, steel plate, stamp on the verso of Hughes & Kimber, London, 10.5 × 7.5 cm. Oxford, Bodleian Libraries. MS WHF Talbot 70

8

William Henry Fox Talbot, Buildings on the Seine, ca. 1852–1858, photographic engraving, steel plate, stamp on the verso of Hughes & Kimber, London, 7.5 × 10.5 cm. Oxford, Bodleian Libraries, MS WHF Talbot 71

4 Conclusions

The plates in the Talbot Archive offer a rare glimpse into an experimental practice that ultimately diverged from traditional notions of ‘success’ and did not produce recognisable and ‘authorial’ images. As I have asserted, Talbot’s photomechanical patents never found commercial application within the printmaking and photographic industries. According to Talbot’s son Charles, they were regarded by their contemporaries as a “mere scientific curiosity” rather than “an invention of general utility”.^[50] However, the photographic and photoglyphic engraving processes have a key role in tracing the evolution of Talbot’s concept of the ‘photographic’ beyond the usual chronology attributed to him – the 1830s through the 1840s. Talbot’s extensive research and practical engagement with photomechanical techniques provide valuable insight into the influence of materials on his photographic work, which did not stop in the 1840s with his invention of photochemical and paper-based photography but evolved in the 1850s into metal and ink photography.

Blank, unused, or damaged printing plates prompt us to reconsider traditional image-led approaches to the history of photography. They highlight the limits of historiographies and methodologies anchored in the analysis of objects as carriers of images, in favour of approaches that consider objects as physical traces of practices and the material culture involved in their making and use. Despite the absence of photographic images on many of the Bodleian plates, they nevertheless provide a crucial material trace of Talbot’s experimental photomechanical practice that opens new paths to revisit his photographic work. More specifically, they encourage engagement with the trial-and-error phases of processes, often overlooked in archives and historiographies because they are difficult to trace, especially from a material perspective.

Clear examples of the challenges in locating and studying this kind of material addressed in this article include the long-term misplacement of the Bodleian plates and the physical separation between experimental loose notes and plates across several archives. It is indeed crucial to note that the majority of the plates discussed here were not in the archive for a long time but in an old oven and, therefore, unknown. Their acquisition by the Bodleian Libraries and entry into the archive in 2014 marked a collective acknowledgment of the value of this material, which, however, was not reflected in scholarly engagement, probably because the plates did not display discernible images and therefore lacked a clear link to Talbot’s photographic work. Consequently, their value was mostly linked to the historical relevance of their original owner, Talbot, rather than to their epistemological potential in shedding light on two under-researched photomechanical processes, which remain largely undetected in the archival description. The challenges in studying complex materials like these plates often result in an apparent ‘archival absence’, further amplified by the material fragmentation of a practitioner’s legacy in several archives and the lack of historiographical engagement and suitable archival descriptions that could provide an appropriate context for identifying experimental material and integrating it into broader histories of photography.

Talbot’s case provides a signal example of the need to challenge fixed narratives and standard historical assessments of well-known protagonists in photographic history and how this reassessment shall start right from a close examination of overlooked archival material. In particular, it is essential to give more scholarly attention to practices and experiments labelled as ‘failures’, or perhaps even as not ‘photographic’, that are in fact critical to understanding what informed a practitioner’s research and how their work progressed over time. What at first seems to be simply ‘blank’ in fact offers multiple levels of information and productive suggestions when read beyond the tendency to prioritize pictorial representation. The Bodleian plates highlight the significance of engaging unused or working materials within the context of Talbot’s photomechanical experiments and, more broadly, photographic history, making space for the study of objects that do not embody ‘successful’ practices.

I am deeply grateful to the guest editors, Elizabeth Otto and Steffen Siegel, for inviting me to write this article and for their invaluable feedback, as well as to the two anonymous reviewers for their thoughtful critiques. This article was made possible thanks to the support of the Photography Network Project Award 2024, which supported the costs associated with new photography and image rights.

Photo Credits: 1, 4–8 © Bodleian Libraries, University of Oxford 2025. — 2, 3 © National Science & Media Museum / Science Museum Group 2025 (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0).