A Scene in a Library

William Henry Fox Talbot

before March 22, 1844 · Salted paper print from paper negative · Photographs

An exceptional student first at Harrow and later at Cambridge, Talbot was a man of great learning and broad interests. Mathematics, astronomy, physics, botany, chemistry, Egyptology, philology, and the classics were all within the scope of his investigative appetite. The Philosophical Magazine, Miscellanies of Science, Botanische Schriften, Manners and Customs of the Ancient Egyptians, Philological Essays, Poetae Minores Graeci, and Lanzi's Storia pittorica dell'Italia are among the volumes represented in this photograph-truly an intellectual self-portrait. The image appeared as plate 8 in The Pencil of Nature. Paradoxically, A Scene in a Library was taken out of doors, where the light was stronger.

Artist

William Henry Fox Talbot

Date

before March 22, 1844

Medium

Salted paper print from paper negative

Department

Photographs

Credit line

Gilman Collection, Gift of The Howard Gilman Foundation, 2005