HF The History of Photography 600pág

produced by other photomechanical means. Not being hand-made like carbon prints,
Woodburytypes were considerably cheaper and were therefore largely used for book
illustration from about 1875 to the end of the century. Swan's carbon prints, on the
other hand, could be made in much larger sizes (up to 52 in. x 44 in.),16 and were
therefore preferred for art reproductions of paintings to hang on the wall.
Woodbury's process underwent several improvements subsequent to the original
patent. In its final form, a hardened colourless 'gelatine relief' (i.e. a carbon print
minus the carbon) was impressed upon a block of lead under enormous hydraulic
pressure-an idea doubtless taken from Auer's 'nature printing'. The intaglio mould
thus produced was placed in a hand-press, and warm pigmented gelatine poured on.
A sheet of paper was spread over this, the press closed, and the excess gelatine squeezed
out. When set, the gelatine impression adhered firmly to the paper, and only
required hardening in an alum bath. The resulting picture was similar in appearance
to a Swan carbon print, and consisted of coloured gelatine in relief, the thickest parts
being the darkest.
Woodbury claimed that 600 to 800 impressions could be obtained from each metal
mould, and about twenty moulds made from one gelatine relief-that is, at least
12,000 impressions could be obtained from one relief.17 In practice, however, it was
found that only five or six metal moulds could be made from one gelatine relief.18
The prints could be made at the rate of 120 an hour.19
In 1867 Goupil & Co. of Paris acquired for 150,000 francs (then £6,ooo) the
Woodburytype patent rights for France, where the process was introduced as 'Photoglyptie'.
In 1870 the American rights were acquired by John Carbutt of Philadelphia.
The British rights were bought by Disderi & Co. early in l 868, and a French
capitalist was said to have financed the new venture to the amount of £40,000.
Disderi was managing director of the company, which was established at one of his
London portrait establishments, at Hereford Square, South Kensington. For the first
six months the firm seemed to flourish, but then Disderi suddenly disappeared and
the Company went into liquidation. No satisfactory explanation could be given as to
the whereabouts of the money.20 In January l 869 the patent rights and the premises
were taken over by the Photo Relief Company, but by an oversight the patent was
not renewed in 1872.21 The process did not, however, become public property as one
would expect; it was held to be covered by Swan's photomezzotint patent which the
company had also acquired.
Each number of a new monthly art journal which began publication in 1871 or
1872 under the title The Picture Gallery of British Art was illustrated with four Woodburytypes
of celebrated paintings by British artists. Another monthly magazine, The
Theatre, had two Woodburytype photographs of famous stage personalities from its
first number in August 1878 until it ceased publication in the late nineties. These
prints were made by the Woodbury Permanent Photographic Printing Co., which
took the process over from the Photo Relief Co.,22 and eight printers each looking
after seven hand-presses arranged around a revolving table were able to produce
30,000 cartes in a day.23 In 1891 a final improvement was made which consisted in
transferring the trimmed Woodburytype onto the page and peeling off the paper on
which it had been made. The coloured gelatine relief left on the page is so extraordinarily
thin that it looks exactly as if it were printed direct on the page. This
modification was given the misleading name 'Woodburygravure'.
Stannotype. Owing to the considerable expense of the plant necessary for Woodburytype
printing, it remained confined to a few big firms. To enable photographers
to produce permanent prints themselves, Woodbury devised a simplified process
Permanent photographs 341