[Copy of a Swainson Lithographic Print of a Collared Crabeater]

In presenting Copy of a Lithographic Print (a Parisian caricature) in his 1844-46 treatise on photography, The Pencil of Nature, William Henry Fox Talbot explained that “all kinds of engravings may be copied by photographic means; and this application of the art is a very important one, not only as producing in general nearly fac-simile copies, but because it enables us at pleasure to alter the scale, and to make the copies as much larger or smaller than the originals as we may desire.” In Some Account of the Art of Photogenic Drawing (1839) he had explained that

“the engraving is pressed upon the prepared paper, with its engraved side in contact with the latter. . . . The effect of the copy, though of course unlike the original, (substituting as it does lights for shadows and vice versa) yet is often very pleasing, & would I think suggest to artists useful ideas respecting light & shade. . . . but if the picture so obtained is first <span class="underline">preserved so as to bear sunshine, it may be afterwards itself employed as an object to be copied; & by means of this second process the lights & shadows are brought back to their original disposition. . . . I propose to employ this for the purpose more particularly of multiplying at small expense copies of such rare or unique engravings as it would not be worthwhile to reengrave, from the limited demand for them.”

Here, Talbot made a contact copy of William Swainson’s 1820 lithograph of a bird native to India. Swainson, in addition to being one of the finest zoological illustrators of his day, was actively involved in reproductive printing processes. He taught himself lithography so he could transfer his own designs directly onto the printing plate without the intervention of an engraver.

Larry Schaaf, William Henry Fox Talbot, In Focus: Photographs from the J. Paul Getty Museum (Los Angeles: Getty Publications, 2002), 76. ©2002 J. Paul Getty Trust.