William Henry Fox Talbot
Bust of Patroclus

Public Domain

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Images(2)

Artist William Henry Fox Talbot (British, 1800–1877)British, 1800–1877

CultureBritish

Titles

Bust of Patroclus

DateAugust 9, 1843

MediumSalted paper print from paper negative

DimensionsImage: 5 3/4 × 5 5/8 in. (14.6 × 14.2 cm)
Sheet: 5 3/4 × 5 5/8 in. (14.6 × 14.3 cm)
Mount: 12 1/4 × 9 3/4 in. (31.1 × 24.8 cm)

Credit LineGift of Mike and Mickey Marvins

Object number2015.619

Not on view

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Department

Photography

Special Collections

Marvins Family Collections

Object Type

PHOTOGRAPHS

DescriptionWhen William Henry Fox Talbot first announced his process for paper photography in 1839, the process required exposures too long to be practical for portraiture; his new art was better suited to subjects that did not move—landscape, architecture, or still life. Talbot’s plaster cast of a Hellenistic marble bust of Achilles’s comrade Patroclus provided an animated and expressive substitute for the live model, and he photographed it more than forty-five times between 1839 and 1843, when this version was made. This particular print was once plate 17 in a copy of Talbot’s The Pencil of Nature, the first photographically illustrated book, published in parts between 1844 and 1846. Although Talbot’s improved process was by then capable of recording portraits, he included none in his volume, but instead chose two photographs of this plaster bust.
Provenance[Daniel Wolf Gallery, New York]; [Cronin Gallery, Houston]; purchased by Michael Marvins and Michele Marvins, Houston, 1970s; given to MFAH, 2015.
Exhibition History“A Photographer’s Collection: Gifts from Michael and Michele Marvins,” The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, April 4–July 5, 2015.
Inscriptions, Signatures and Marks

verso of mount lower right in ink: LA17; bottom right corner in pencil: ICP 506

printed bottom right corner on the image: [illegible] 1843

Catalogue raisonnéSC3664

Cataloguing data may change with further research.

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