[Botanical Specimens]

Robert Hunt

ca. 1841 · Salted paper and fabric prints · Photographs

About 1841, at the same time he wrote the first historical account of the two-year-old medium of photography and its much longer prehistory, Hunt experimented with practical uses for photography and applied some variant of Talbot's chemistry to paper, linen, and silk, perhaps seeking a new means of textile decoration. The results look like delicately patterned damask-snippets of coffee- or wine-colored ribbon woven in a floral pattern by the most skilled of artisans.

Artist

Robert Hunt

Date

ca. 1841

Medium

Salted paper and fabric prints

Department

Photographs

Credit line

The Rubel Collection, Purchase, Anonymous Gift, 1997