No title (Portrait of a man)

This tiny portrait of an unknown sitter is the earliest photograph in the collection of the National Gallery of Victoria. It was taken by William Henry Fox Talbot, the English scientist, linguist, mathematician and archaeologist whose pioneering experiments in the 1830s resulted in the development of the paper photographic negative and print. Around the time that he made this portrait, Talbot wrote about how he came to conceive the idea of ‘fixing a shadow’ while honeymooning on the banks of Lake Como in October 1833. Depressed by his abject failure to use a camera obscura (an optical device for sketching), he wrote:

The idea occurred to me ... how charming it would be if it were possible to cause these natural images to imprint themselves durable, and remain fixed upon the paper! ... And why should it not be possible I asked myself. (William Henry Fox Talbot, 1844 quoted in Isobel Crombie, Re-View: 170 years of photography, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, 2009, p.12)

Perhaps one of the most surprising things about photography is not that it was invented, but that it took so long to happen. The idea of transcribing reality had been imagined since the fifth century BC when the Chinese philosopher Mo Ti wrote about a ‘pinhole’ camera. Other optical innovations evolved over time but it was not until the early 1800s that the chemicals needed for light-sensitive emulsions were discovered, allowing the first permanent (if impractical) method of photography to be pioneered by the Frenchman Nicéphore Niépce in 1825.

The French artist and chemist Louis-Jacques-Mandé Daguerre formed a partnership with Niépce to refine the process and in January 1839, after Niépce’s death, announced his own invention: the daguerreotype (a unique image on a metal plate). Talbot was shocked to hear of Daguerre’s process and publicised his own ‘photogenic drawing’ two weeks later. By 1840 Talbot had created the calotype, a paper negative from which multiple positive prints could be made, and a process that is considered the foundation of conventional photography.

Talbot was an astute businessman who, unlike Daguerre, patented his invention, but he was also a philosopher who had a prescient understanding of how photography could be applied. He foresaw various scientific uses for a medium that could describe reality in all its detail; he understood how photographs could be useful as an artist’s aid; he realised, too, that, in the right hands, the camera could create art. Talbot took over five thousand images to test the visual possibilities of photography and his experimentations included images of architecture, glassware, sculpture, plant life and portraits. In this latter regard, he often called on his friends, family and employees to pose for him at his home in Lacock Abbey.

It is not known if this portrait was taken at one such sitting, but the early date suggests that it probably was. While the little print may not reveal much of the character of the well-dressed if sombre gentleman who sat for it, it still conveys the wonder of a medium that Talbot described as ‘a little bit of magic realized’.

Text © National Gallery of Victoria, Australia