Beschreibung
A young woman s scrapbook album that belonged to Annie Jervis, containing numerous mounted engravings (several of which are hand-colored), a few manuscripts of verse, and two photographic prints. The first is a previously unknown photogenic drawing made by her father Thomas Jervis, Fellow of the Royal Society of London, in May 1839. The second is a salted paper portrait photograph of Annie Jervis (circa 1854) made by Juan, Count of Montizón, a founding member of the Royal Photographic Society. Small quarto (6" x 7½"). Contemporary dark purple blind-stamped cloth over boards. Owner s name on front free endpaper: "Annie Eliza Scott Jervis / Naples, March 1 [67?]." The binding is worn, most gatherings and individual leaves are loose or detached with frayed edges, else very good overall, with a few scattered small color pencil marks made by a child. Housed in a handsome clamshell box in quarter black morocco, gilt spine, and interior chemise. 1. Photogenic drawing of two feathers (10 x 9½ cm). Captioned in ink by Thomas Jervis along the bottom edge of the image. 2. Salted paper print (11½ x 15½ cm). Portrait of Annie Jervis, likely taken in 1854 when she was about twenty years old. Captioned in ink underneath the print. Lieut.-Colonel Thomas Best Jervis, born in British Ceylon in 1796, was a prominent engineer and surveyor based in India for much of his career. A member of the Bombay branch of the Royal Asiatic Society (BBRAS), Thomas Best and his brother George Risto won fame for "their pioneering contributions to the cause of rational education and to the dissemination of scientific knowledge which marked the beginning of the process of Modernization in the post 1818 Western India." While on furlough in 1838-39, then Captain Thomas Best was resident in London when William Henry Fox Talbot presented his paper about the photogenic process to the Royal Society in February of 1839. Also at this time (April, 1839), Jervis was corresponding with Sir John F.W. Herschel, Britain s most preeminent scientist, who in 1839 was conducting experiments in photochemistry and proved that his sodium thiosulfate was the most powerful fixer for silver-based photographic images. Thomas Best s known correspondence with Herschel (in April and September, 1839) suggests that he may have made use of Herschel s sodium thiosulfate or "hypo," the substance which soon came into use as a fixing agent, in his experimental photogenic drawing. A rare and remarkable print made in the spring of 1839 before Talbot s public lectures in the summer of that year on the emerging art of photography, and which certainly could be considered as the first "amateur" photograph ever made. References 1. Herschel Family Papers (Harry Ransom Center, MS-1931). 2. J. V. Naik and Prabha Ravi Shankar. The Jervis Brothers: George Risto Jervis & Thomas Best Jervis, Founders and Guardians of The Asiatic Society of Mumbai. Asiatic Society of Mumbai: 2014. Bestandsnummer des Verkäufers 547304
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