HF The History of Photography 600pág

The calotype and other paper processes in Great Britain 163
had he been officially honoured by the Government as Daguerre was, he would probably
have thrown open his process for everyone's pleasure and benefit. As it was, all
he received was the Royal Society's Rumford Medal in 1842.
The only national reward that could have been offered to a person in Talbot's
position would have been a title. Yet the country which had not considered it necessary
to give a reward to James Watt for his great improvement upon the steam
engine, or to George Stephenson, the originator of the railway system-both vital
inventions for industrial expansion-was not likely to give a reward for an invention
the main value of which-as far as could be envisaged at the time-lay 'only' in its
artistic qualities. The arts and crafts in France had received liberal official support
from the time of Louis XIV, and in England, apropos of Daguerre's pension, the
question was asked with some indignation: 'When will the Government of Great
Britain think it a part of duty to buy a grand discovery, and give it to the world?
And if the Government were so inclined, when will the House of Commons entertain
the proposition? The humbling fact stares us full in the face, that France has been,
and we fear always will be, the leader in attempts to elevate the character of her
people by a noble protection of the arts and sciences. '4
The first person to avail himself of Talbot's invention professionally was a miniature-painter,
HENRY COLLEN, a regular exhibitor at the Royal Academy between
1820-72 and one of Queen Victoria's painting-masters.
Almost from the moment Daguerre's and Fox Talbot's inventions were made
known, Henry Collen took an interest in the new art. In the spring and summer of
1840 he experimented with electrotyping daguerreotypes of engravings in the hope
of improving this means of multiplication, but the impressions obtained were too
indistinct to be of use. 5 After the calotype process had been published, nothing seemed
to stand in the way of its application to portraiture but the acquisition of a licence
and a good large-aperture lens : Henry Collen quickly set about obtaining both.
Talbot granted him the first calotype licence,6 and the optician ANDREW ROSS
constructed for him the first British portrait lens (1841), and the first in which the
visual and chemical foci were coincident. It was a double combination with a diaphragm
between the two plano-convex components.7 An unusual feature of the
first camera which Ross designed for use with it was that the image was not received
on a flat piece of paper, but the prepared sheet was pressed between two curved glass
plates, to correct the curvature of field of the lens. In the second, smaller camera the
image was received in the usual way on a flat piece of paper.
The exact date when Henry Collen started taking portraits is not known, but he
mentions a portrait of Charles Babbage taken in August 1841,8 thus following hard
on the heels of Beard and Claudet. His studio at 29 Somerset Street, Duke Street,
near Portman Square, was the first calotype studio. Portraits were at first taken in a
glass-covered yard at the back of the house, modifications to the lighting being effected
by mirrors.9 During December the exposures were 1 minute, but in the following
spring this was greatly reduced, for Collen impressed on prospective clients the great
advantages inherent in the process he was using : 'A sitting of a few seconds is all that
is required for taking a portrait, of which any number of copies may be produced.'
Believing that the marriage of the old and the new methods of portraiture would
give a still more perfect result, Collen used the photographic image as a basis for his
artistic skill : 'he corrects any imperfection in the drapery or supplies any defects in
the figure, so that his works have an entirely different aspect from those of the
amateur, who must, generally speaking, be content with the results which the process
gives him'.10 Sir David Brewster considered Collen's portraits 'infinitely superior