Albumen print at V&A

[philldresser]

I saw a magnificent Albumen print yesterday , my first one, in a small exhibition at the V&A museum in London

The image was a depiction of the rebuild of Crystal Palace by Philip Henry Delmotte and made from a Wet Colloidion image on Glass. I was very impressed with the quality of the image especially as it was around 20x16 inches. Most impressive and worth a look if you are passing by

Cheers

Phill

 

[David A. Goldfarb]

You've probably seen albumen prints before without realizing it. It was a fairly popular process from about the mid-1860s to 1900. If you've seen a box of cartes de visite from that era at a flea market or antique shop with brownish portraits on thin paper mounted to a thicker cardstock with the name of the subject on the bottom, those were most likely albumen prints.

 

[philldresser]

You've probably seen albumen prints before without realizing it.

David

Your probably right, maybe what I should of said was this was the first print I have seen which was labelled as an Albumen and was sufficient quality to take severely take my interest. Have you seen any of his Crystal Palace work?

Phill

 

[David A. Goldfarb]

Have you seen any of his Crystal Palace work?

Possibly. I've been to the V&A, but it's been some years. It would have been before I was making albumen prints, and I think if I'd seen this print, I would have been more interested in the Crystal Palace than the photographs at that time, since I've often taught Dostoevsky's _Notes from Underground_ and Chernyshevsky's _What is to be Done?_ in Russian literature courses, and the original Crystal Palace figures in in important ways in both of those works, as a symbol for a technological utopia in Chernyshevsky's case, dystopia in Dostoevsky's.

 

[Ian Grant]

I've often taught Dostoevsky's _Notes from Underground_ and Chernyshevsky's _What is to be Done?_ in Russian literature courses, and the original Crystal Palace figures in in important ways in both of those works, as a symbol for a technological utopia in Chernyshevsky's case, dystopia in Dostoevsky's.

Albumen prints are a lot more subtle and interesting

Ian

 

[David A. Goldfarb]

Subtle, definitely. Interesting, sometimes.