William Henry Fox Talbot

A Strip of Lace, with Selvage
Now On View

Maker

William Henry Fox Talbot (English, 1800 - 1877)

Title

A Strip of Lace, with Selvage

Year

ca. 1852-1857

Medium

Materials/Techniques

Techniques

Dimensions

Plate: 12.9 x 20.1 cm (5 1/16 x 7 15/16 inches)

Credit / Object Number

Credit

Georgianna Sayles Aldrich Fund and Mary B. Jackson Fund

Object Number

2023.132.1

Type

Publications

  • Journal

Manual / Issue 20: Technologies

Manual: Technologies considers the history and future of art and technology by examining artworks that combine manual techniques and handiwork with non-human productive agents associated with industry or technology. 

Exhibition History

Process Work
Intersections of Photography and Print ca. 1825 to Today
Feb 01, 2025 – Jul 20, 2025

Label copy

Some of the earliest examples of photographic printing are actually reproductions of non-photographic images, such as architectural drawings, pieces of fabric, and Renaissance-era prints, as seen here. Early experimenters struggled to translate the tonal range of photography into the graphic language of print. Reproducing images that were already made up of lines and marks on a blank space was a logical place to start. 

To read more about William Henry Fox Talbot’s early experiments, see curator Sarah Mirseyedi’s Object Lesson in Manual 20. 

Image use

The images on this website can enable discovery and collaboration and support new scholarship, and we encourage their use.

Public Domain This object is in the Public Domain and available under a CC0 1.0 Universal (CC0 1.0) Public Domain Dedication

Tombstone

William Henry Fox Talbot (English, 1800 - 1877)
A Strip of Lace, with Selvage, ca. 1852-1857
Photographic engraving on paper
Plate: 12.9 x 20.1 cm (5 1/16 x 7 15/16 inches)
Georgianna Sayles Aldrich Fund and Mary B. Jackson Fund 2023.132.1

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