Talbot Photo 10(23)

Genre: Urban Topographical Photography

View from a slightly elevated standpoint, looking across the Thames, with Waterloo Bridge to the left and the chimney of New Shot Mill, right of centre on the far bank. This photograph was taken from the same location as Talbot Photo 10 (24). Chemistry float-applied on paper 185 x 226 mm. The prints in this album are particularly vulnerable and therefore should not be viewed under normal light levels.

This is one of a series of images taken Talbot's flat in Cecil Street and discussed in Larry J. Schaaf, 'The photographic art of William Henry Fox Talbot' (Princeton University Press, Princeton and Oxford, 2000), p. 116: 'Talbot had gone to London specifically to photograph the metropolis and had taken up residence at a flat in Cecil Street, not far from his familiar haunts of Kings College and the Society of Arts. On 15 June 1841, Lady Elisabeth Feilding recorded in her diary that she 'went to see Henry make Calotypes in his new domicile in Cecil Street.' Writing to his wife Constance that evening, Talbot explained that 'my windows in Cecil St. command a good view of the river but unfortunately I find that the London atmosphere prevents a good result, even the fog is hardly visible to the eye.'' According to Schaaf (op. cit. p. 244), this and the following print are the only surviving positive images.