Woodburytypes

TERRY KING (101522.2625@compuserve.com)
23 Feb 96 07:55:55 EST

Phillip

There have many messages from me as I am still excited by a sense of
discovery',Like stout Cortez on a peak in Darient '. And I want to know who is
there. Perhaps I will become blase soon.

I read your posting with great interest.

My woodburytypes are warm and dark brown. They have the reticulated relief that
is supposed to be indicative of the woodburytype.(The spell checker is getting
very upset). They are included in a book 'Masterpieces of Antique Art' Twenty
-Five Examples in Permanent Photography from the Celebrated Collections in the
Vatican, the Louvre and the British Museum, by Stephen Thompson published by
Griffith and Farran, West Corner of St Paul's Churchyard, London, MDCCCLXXVIII.
(Which reminds of my favourite Times crossword clue which was ' 1200-1000'., 10
letters). Colin Osman (The speller prefers colic OS man)considers that the
dates and the style mean that the British Museum ones are very likely to be
Fentons.

When I first bought the book I thought that they were gold toned albumen
prints. All the prints, which are six and a half by eight and a half have beauty
but he one that excites me is of a bronze head of Aphrodite where the relief and
the contrast range make one feel that one pick the polished artifact from the
page. One of my students picked up a beautiful collection of Woodburytype
reproductions of contemporary photographs the other day for very little money. I
should be so lucky.

if they are not rare why do I rarely see them and where can I ?

I have got a glorious range of tone from a carbon print; it has the edge on
platinum, but surely as the woodburytype can be a reproduction process, it
should be able to reproduce all the tones of both.

I thought that the decline of the woodburytype was brought about by the arrival
of the collotype. Did not one need a hydraulic press to make them. I seem to
remember that there was a print works still making reproductions of this kind in
the Old Kent Road until the demise of the London hydraulic ring main in the
1960s.

Would it be naff arrange a meeting of those on the list from time to time ?

Terry