Lace

Early 1840s
William Henry Fox Talbot

William Henry Fox Talbot (1800–1877) produced his first photographs without a camera in the early 1840s by placing objects on a photosensitive surface to obtain what he called “photogenic drawings”, images in which the artist’s pencil played no part whatsoever. Sunlight acted on the exposed parts, thus causing the forms hidden beneath the object during the exposure time to appear as a negative image. After performing this experiment with the leaves of numerous plants with a view to a classification of botanical species, Talbot also made photogenic drawings of lace, where the material and its interplay of transparency are captured in all their delicacy. He thus hoped to help industry by providing models for reproduction.