Lot 107: SIR JOHN FREDERICK WILLIAM HERSCHEL, 1ST BARONET (1792-1871)

Carte-de-visite photograph signed (on mount, 'J.F.W. Herschel'), and dated, 10 May 1870, the photograph a head and shoulders image by Julia Margaret Cameron, signed and inscribed by her ('From life Copyright Julia Margaret Cameron'), 84 x 58mm (102 x 64mm with mount), (somewhat speckled).

JULIA MARGARET CAMERON'S CELEBRATED PORTRAIT OF HERSCHEL. Herschel's discovery that hyposulphite of soda dissolves silver salts was a major step in the prehistory of photography. It was during his residence in southern Africa, 1833-38, that he most closely studied photography, introducing a number of key terms to the vocabulary, including 'positive', 'negative', 'snap-shot' and 'photographer'. Herschel and Julia Margaret Cameron met at the Cape in 1835, and he was to be something of a mentor to her career as a photographer (which began almost 30 years later). Cameron's patent for the present, the best known of her series of portraits of Herschel, was granted on 9 April 1867.

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