[Statuette of "The Rape of the Sabines" (Brewster's copy of a Talbot print)]

A complex story is hinted at by the multiple borders framing this subject, one that reveals a much different attitude toward the authorship of photographs in William Henry Fox Talbot’s day. Sir David Brewster, a friend as well as a journalist and scientist, was happy to use the power of Talbot’s invention to copy one of the master’s works, and Talbot would have been happy for him to do so.

This picture, from the Brewster Album, was almost certainly made by the Scotsman by copying a print supplied by Talbot. The image was itself a rendition of a reproduction, a small plaster statuette of Giambologna’s famous sculpture in Florence. The outline of the original negative (National Science and Media Museum, Bradford, UK) is the central rectangle in Brewster’s version, which is surrounded by the border of Talbot’s positive. After receiving a print from Talbot, Brewster must have waxed it, placed it in contact with a sheet of sensitized paper, and then exposed the pairing to sunlight. This formed a new negative with yet another border, which in turn was placed in contact with an additional sheet of paper to make the final positive. The wrinkles from the waxed paper of the original print as well as a partial watermark (Whatman’s Turkey Mill) were recorded along with the various borders.

Brewster made at least one other copy of the image this way. It is in an album (also in the Getty collection) compiled by the Maitland family, who lived near St. Andrews (see 85.XZ.262.89). Another copy (see 84.XB.952.1.1 was included in the 1846 publication The Art Union Monthly Journal of the Fine Arts, and the Arts, Decorative, Ornamental. The initial print that Talbot sent to Brewster is not known to have survived these trials, however.

Adapted from Larry Schaaf, William Henry Fox Talbot, In Focus: Photographs from the J. Paul Getty Museum (Los Angeles: Getty Publications, 2002), 58. ©2002 J. Paul Getty Trust.