Portraits of the Emperor and Princess of Prussia
<p>Around the same time as photography’s discovery, <a href="https://library.vicu.utoronto.ca/collections/special_collections/george_baxter/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">George Baxter</a> developed a process of colour printing known as <a href="https://www.npg.org.uk/collections/explore/glossary-of-art-terms/chromolithograph" target="_blank" rel="noopener">chromolithography</a>, which he patented in 1835. The portraits of the Emperor and Princess of Prussia seen here employ that process in order to create r<span>ichly-coloured portraits that commemorate the powerful and the wealthy. In comparison to </span><a href="https://omeka.library.ualberta.ca/exhibits/show/photograpies/item/3125">daguerreotypes</a><span><span><a href="https://omeka.library.ualberta.ca/exhibits/show/photograpies/item/3125"> of middle-class patrons like that of Mrs Morrow</a>, these could be, and were intended to be, circulated widely in order to promote a public identity. </span></span></p>
<span style="font-weight: 400;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">View Baxter's <i><a href="https://omeka.library.ualberta.ca/exhibits/show/photograpies/item/3033">Cabinet of Paintings</a></i>, another example of the chromolithographic process, as well as the <a href="https://bpsc.library.ualberta.ca/collections/donald-and-barbara-cameron-collection-of-george-baxter-prints" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Cameron Collection of George Baxter Prints</a>, housed in Bruce Peel Special Collections.</span></span>
George Baxter (creator)
1855 <br />21.0 x 16.5 cm <br />NE 1860 B2 A7 P75 1858 (<em>Princess Royal, Princess of Prussia</em>) <br />NE 1860 B2 A7 V58 1855 (<em>Vive L'Empereur!</em>)
Miscellaneous Objects as Seen With and Without the Microscope
<p><i><span style="font-weight: 400;">Miscellaneous Objects as Seen With and Without the Microscope</span></i><span style="font-weight: 400;"> predates the introduction of photography. The visual notes it contains depend entirely on the artist's ability to not only record their observations, but to also remember what was seen through the microscope when they refocused on the page. </span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">In 1839, <a href="https://www.getty.edu/art/collection/artists/1969/william-henry-fox-talbot-english-1800-1877/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">William Henry Fox Talbot</a> speculated on the application of photography to the microscope:</span></p>
<blockquote>The objects which the microscope unfolds to our view, curious and wonderful as they are, are often singularly complicated. The eye, indeed, many comprehend the whole which is presented to it in the field of view; but the powers of the pencil fail to express these minutiae of nature in their innumerable details. What artist could have skill or patience enough to copy them? or granting that he [<span style="font-weight: 400;"></span><i><span style="font-weight: 400;">sic</span></i><span style="font-weight: 400;">]</span> <span style="font-weight: 400;">could do so, must it not be at the expense of much most valuable time, which might be more usefully employed? Contemplating the beautiful picture which the solar microscope produces, the thought struck me, whether it might not be possible to cause that image to impress itself upon the paper, and thus to let Nature substitute her own inimitable pencil, for the imperfect, tedious, and almost hopeless attempt of copying a subject so intricate. (quoted in Goldberg 43)</span></blockquote>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Compare this example to an <a href="https://omeka.library.ualberta.ca/exhibits/show/photograpies/item/3156">album of anatomical illustrations of a bee</a> from 1875</span><span style="font-weight: 400;">, which includes photomicrographs.</span></p>
creator unknown
[1820]
15.8 x 9.4 cm
QL 466 M58 1820