Félix Nadar

In the 1860s, the English photographer Walter Woodbury patented the woodburytype process, which involved creating a relief mold from light-sensitized gelatin. The thin sheet of hardened gelatin in the case below is one such example, used to produce this portrait of the French artist and writer Isidore Séverin, also known as Baron Taylor. The mold’s surface varies in thickness across the tonal range of the image: the darkest areas of the image, such as the jacket, are the thickest areas of the gelatin sheet, while the lightest areas, such as the face, are thinnest. 

To produce a woodburytype print, great force is used to press the gelatin mold into a lead plate, transferring its three-dimensional surface onto the plate. The plate is then inked with pigmented gelatin and printed onto paper.