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Home>Captain Linnaeus Tripe: Photographer of India and Burma, 1852-1860>Printing Techniques

Introduction

Early Work in England

Return to India

The Burma Mission

South India

Note on Tripe's Prints

Photographic Printing Techniques of the 1850s

Photographic Practices of the 1850s

Chronology

Exhibition Catalog Captain Linnaeus TripeRoger Taylor, Crispin Branfoot, with Sarah Greenough and Malcolm Daniel

AudioIntroduction to the Exhibition, lecture by Sarah Greenough, exhibition curator

Audio Symposium Lecture Part 1: ''A Glorious Galaxy of Monuments': Photography and the Archaeological Survey of India after Tripe," John Falconer

Audio Symposium Lecture Part 2: "Interpreting Early Photography in India: Medium and Method," Zahid R. Chaudhary

Audio Symposium Lecture Part 3: "Measuring Time: Linnaeus Tripe’s Inscription of the Thanjavur Temple, 1858," Maria Antonella Pelizzari

PDF Download Public Symposium Program

Linnaeus Tripe in the Collection of the National Gallery of Art

Photographs Conservation

Press Release

Exhibition Checklist

# Photographic Printing Techniques of the 1850s

**Fig. 1.** Coating one side of the paper with a solution of albumen and chloride salts

Before 1860, the printing of photographs was a delicate, complex operation. Although many photographers in the 1850s continued to use Talbot’s older salted paper printing process, Tripe usually employed the newer albumen process. Invented in 1850 by Louis Désiré Blanquart-Evrard, it used albumen found in egg whites to bind the chemicals to the surface of the paper. By the late 1850s, commercially manufactured albumen paper was readily available in Europe and America, but Tripe made his own through a laborious process.

**Fig. 2.** Hanging the printing paper to dry after sensitizing

First, he floated a thin sheet of French paper on a solution of chloride salts and albumen (fig. 1). The dilution of the albumen determined the thickness of the coating, which in turn influenced the level of sheen or gloss of the print. Preferring a low sheen, Tripe diluted his albumen generously with water and allowed the paper to airdry, as ironing imparted a higher gloss (fig. 2). He then carefully floated this piece of paper on a bath of silver nitrate in a darkened room to form the light-sensitive silver chloride. The paper was dried again, then put in a printing frame in direct contact with the negative and placed in the sun for exposure. After several minutes, the sun darkened the print: its progress could be measured by opening the back of the printing frame (figs. 3 and 4).

**Fig. 3.** Checking the progress of a print’s exposure in a printing frame

Once the print had reached the desired intensity, it was taken back to the darkroom where it was washed, then rendered insensitive to light by “fixing” it in a solution of hyposulphite of soda (“hypo”). Following another wash, Tripe then toned his prints with a solution of gold to gain greater permanence and a deep purple color. The print was again washed and fixed in a bath of hypo, before a final washing and drying.

**Fig. 4.**Nineteenth-century printing frame

For figs. 1, 2, and 4, see Arthur Chevalier, *L’étudiant photographe*(Paris, c. 1867), 116, 117, 120. For fig. 3, see Hector MacLean, *Popular Photographic Printing Processes*(London, 1898), 10. National Gallery of Art Library, David K. E. Bruce Fund

See photographic process videos from George Eastman House on Talbot's processes  and the albumen print.

Examples by Tripe's Contemporaries:

Photographic Printing Techniques of the 1850s: Examples by Tripe's Contemporaries
William Henry Fox TalbotBritish, 1800–1877*The Boulevards of Paris*, 1843salted paper print from calotype negativeNational Gallery of Art, Washington, New Century Fund, 1997.97.4

In 1839 the British chemist, linguist, archaeologist, and inventor William Henry Fox Talbot announced his process of photography to a startled world. The precursor of virtually all modern photography before the digital age, Talbot’s method created negatives from which numerous positive prints could be made. He subsequently refined his process for making negatives, which he called calotypes. Five steps were needed to transform a sheet of smooth writing paper into a negative ready for printing, each one requiring a sophisticated understanding of the chemical processes involved. Consequently calotypes were favored by artists, not commercial practitioners for whom the complex and variable process was not cost-effective.

Photographic Printing Techniques of the 1850s: Examples by Tripe's Contemporaries
David Octavius Hill and Robert AdamsonScottish, 1821–1848; and Scottish, 1802–1870*Colinton Manse and Weir*, 1843–1847salted paper print from calotype negativeNational Gallery of Art, Washington, Paul Mellon Fund, 2007.29.26

Because Talbot’s calotype process made negatives on uncoated paper, which allowed the light-sensitive materials to be absorbed into the paper fibers, the resulting prints lacked fine detail. Although some considered this a disadvantage in comparison to the cool precision of daguerreotypes, David Octavius Hill and his associate Robert Adamson preferred calotypes for their subtle tonal range and slightly atmospheric effects.

Photographic Printing Techniques of the 1850s: Examples by Tripe's Contemporaries
Baron A. FaysFrench, active 1850s*Landscape with Trees under Snow*, c. 1852salted paper print from waxed-paper negativeNational Gallery of Art, Washington, Horace W. Goldsmith Foundation through Robert and Joyce Menschel, 2001.47.1

Photographers of the 1850s used a variety of methods to achieve a pleasing color and rich tonality. Tripe toned his prints with gold, which resulted in a purplish brown color. Scientific analysis suggests that others, like Baron A. Fays, a French amateur photographer, used a chemical processing method to achieve the neutral bluish blacks seen here.

Photographic Printing Techniques of the 1850s: Examples by Tripe's Contemporaries
Jean-Baptiste FrénetFrench, 1814–1889*Portrait of Woman and Child*, 1855salted paper print from collodion glass negativeNational Gallery of Art, Washington, Robert and Joyce Menschel Fund and The Sarah and William L Walton Fund, 2007.92.4.1

Frénet, a student of the French painter Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres, began to photograph in the early 1850s and made intimate, spontaneous portraits of family and friends. He used a method of making negatives on glass coated with collodion (guncotton dissolved in ether) invented in 1851 by the Englishman Frederick Scott Archer. Because of its faster exposure times and sharper definition, collodion was used by most photographers from the late 1850s through the 1870s. See a video of the collodion process for more information on this type of print.

Photographic Printing Techniques of the 1850s: Examples by Tripe's Contemporaries
Jean-Baptiste FrénetFrench, 1814–1889*Portrait of Woman and Child*, 1855salted paper print from collodion glass negativeNational Gallery of Art, Washington, The Nola Foundation, 2007.92.3

Although photographers in the 1850s usually waxed their paper negatives to achieve greater detail, it was less common for prints to be waxed. Here, the thick wax coating gives a warmer tone and glossier surface than seen in the previous unwaxed salted paper print.

Photographic Printing Techniques of the 1850s: Examples by Tripe's Contemporaries
Eugène CuvelierFrench, 1837–1900*Marsh at Piat (Belle-Croix Plateau)*, c. 1863salted paper print from paper negativeNational Gallery of Art, Washington, Gift of Mary and Dan Solomon and Patrons’ Permanent Fund, 2006.133.63

As they experimented to achieve different aesthetic results, photographers in the 1850s and early 1860s occasionally made both salted paper and albumen prints from the same negative. With its softer focus and matte surface, this salted paper print presents an atmospheric, romantic vision, while the albumen print in the next slide has greater detail and more clearly articulated forms, allowing for a closer examination of the scene. Both objectives were highly prized by artists like Cuvelier, who sought to capture the different moods and specificity of nature in the photographs he made in the forest of Fontainebleau southwest of Paris.

Photographic Printing Techniques of the 1850s: Examples by Tripe's Contemporaries
Eugène CuvelierFrench, 1837–1900*Marsh at Piat (Belle-Croix Plateau)*, c. 1863albumen print from paper negativeNational Gallery of Art, Washington, Gift of Mary and Dan Solomon and Patrons’ Permanent Fund, 2006.133.64

In an albumen print, the light-sensitive silver salts rest primarily on the surface. However, when photographers greatly dilute the albumen with water (a practice Tripe usually followed), the light-sensitive materials can also be partly absorbed into the paper fibers. The resulting print then has less definition and lower gloss. This print has slightly more surface sheen than Tripe’s photographs, suggesting that Cuvelier may have used a less diluted albumen solution. But it does not have as much gloss as the photographs by William Bell or F. Jay Haynes (slides 9 and 10), which were printed on commercially manufactured albumen paper.

Photographic Printing Techniques of the 1850s: Examples by Tripe's Contemporaries
Claude Joseph Désiré CharnayFrench, 1828–1915*Madagascan Woman and Her Children*, 1863albumen print from collodion glass negativeNational Gallery of Art, Washington, Gift of Mary and Dan Solomon, 2006.131.3

When Charnay, a French-born New Orleans schoolteacher, archaeologist, and photographer, spent three months on the island of Madagascar off the coast of Africa in 1863, he used collodion glass negatives to record the local inhabitants. He printed these negatives on albumen paper, which further increased their detail.

Photographic Printing Techniques of the 1850s: Examples by Tripe's Contemporaries
William BellAmerican, born England, 1830–1910*Rain Sculpture, Salt Creek Canon, Utah*, 1872albumen print from collodion glass negativeNational Gallery of Art, Washington, Gift of Mary and Dan Solomon and Patrons’ Permanent Fund, 2006.133.33

By the mid-1860s, commercially produced albumen paper all but eclipsed salted paper. Instead of mixing chemicals according to their own recipes and hand coating their papers, photographers increasingly relied on manufactured albumen printing paper. Although their results were more consistent, their prints lacked the individuality of early hand-coated salted paper or albumen prints. A large industry grew up around the manufacture of albumen paper, employing thousands of workers — mainly women — who broke and separated eggs, beat the whites, and floated the paper on the albumen solution one sheet at a time. The consumption of eggs was also enormous: it was estimated that by 1875 approximately 800 million eggs were imported into Great Britain, most of which were used for the production of albumen paper.

Photographic Printing Techniques of the 1850s: Examples by Tripe's Contemporaries
F. Jay HaynesAmerican, 1853–1921*Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone and Falls*, c. 1884albumen print from collodion glass negativeNational Gallery of Art, Washington, Gift of Mary and Dan Solomon, 2006.131.4

The thick coating of albumen on this paper, with its high gloss, is typical of commercially made albumen paper from the 1860s through the 1880s. Careful examination of this work reveals that Haynes retouched the riverbank to emphasize the dramatic rush of the water over the falls and down the river.

Next: Photographic Practices of the 1850s

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