Lot 59: John Dillwyn Talbot Llewelyn (1810-1882), UNTITLED

John Dillwyn Talbot Llewelyn (1810-1882), UNTITLED (STUFFED FOX) c.1850, salted paper print, 15.5 x 20.6cm John Dillwyn Talbot Llewelyn was the son of LW Llewelyn, a wealthy Welsh industrialist and distinguished botanist. He married Emma Thomasina Talbot, who was a first cousin of William Henry Fox Talbot. Emma was similarly enthusiastic about photography and processed all her husband's prints. Llewelyn developed a keen interest in the new art form of photography from its earliest days and experimented alongside Antoine Claudette, the inventor of the daguerreotype process that employed a metal plate coated with light sensitive chemicals. In 1856, John Dillwyn Llewelyn developed the 'Oxymel' process. This stabilised photographic images on 'dry' plates and utilised a solution derived from a mixture of honey and vinegar. This was the breakthrough which made the holy grail of 'instantaneous' photography a reality - it meant that photographs could be taken outdoors and away from the laboratory for the first time. Llewelyn became a pioneering landscape photographer and chronicled family life at his picturesque estate in Penllergaer, Swansea. Fox Talbot considered Llewelyn to be the first botanic photographer and he later became a founder member of the Royal Photographic Society.