>seriously folks, this has made me wonder if the letter that I sent about
>Cliche Verre ever got out there?
Having no personal experience of cliche verre, I, for one, was very
interested to read Peter's descriptions of his work in this medium. It
isn't, perhaps, widely known that some of the very first silver prints on
paper by WHF Talbot were of this kind, made before his camera negatives:
lacking adequate graphic talents himself, Talbot had an artist prepare
cliche verre plates, then he printed these using his new (in 1834-5)
Photogenic Drawing process. He called them 'photogenic etchings'. For a
more scholarly account than I can muster here, see Dr. Larry Schaaf's text
to Catalogue Seven of 'Sun Pictures', recently published by Hans P. Kraus
jr., New York. Lucky New Yorkers (are you listening, Judy?) also have a
print at the Met. in a treasure called the Bertoloni Album - if the curator
will let you look at it, that is.
The only other contribution I can make to this topic is a strong
recommendation of a recent paper by Kimberly Schenck, a paper conservator
at the Baltimore Museum of Art, entitled 'Cliche-verre: drawing and
photography'; it can be found in Volume 6 of Topics in Photographic
Preservation (1995) pp112-118, which is published by the Photographic
Materials Group of the American Institute for Conservation of Historic and
Artistic Works. Her wide-ranging review of historic and contemporary
practice in this rare medium is supported by an excellent bibliography for
anyone wishing to pursue the topic further.
Happy New Year to All. May the verity of your images never be cliched.
Mike