The record behind the sheet in your tube: the file we worked from, what we measured, what we chose and why, what we are allowed to sell, and the framing dimensions for this sheet.
The sheet you have
- Work
- William Henry Fox Talbot (British, 1800–1877), [Dandelion Seeds], 1858 or later
- Object
- Photogravure — photoglyphic engraving from a copper plate, Talbot's own process, patented 1858. Sheet 15.1 × 11.3 cm, plate 12.5 × 9.4 cm, image 10.5 × 7.6 cm
- Held by
- The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York — Rogers Fund, 2004
- Accession
- 2004.111
- File
- The museum's own image server, 2935 × 3818 px — the sheet on a black ground
- Crop
- Sheet [142, 116, 2818, 3725]; printed rectangle [75, 182, 2583, 3413] within it — 2509 × 3232 px, in [x0, y0, x1, y1]
- Printed at
- 20 × 25 cm sheet: 10.35 × 13.33 cm, original size, 1:1 — 616 dpi available
30 × 40 cm sheet: 19.67 × 25.33 cm, enlarged 1.9× — 324 dpi
Why this sheet
Twenty years after he invented photography on paper, Talbot went after the problem that would outlive him: how to print a photograph in ink, on a press, so that it would not fade. He coated a copper plate with light-sensitive gelatine, laid the object on it, exposed it to the sun, etched the plate and printed it like an engraving. He patented the process in 1858 and called it photoglyphic engraving. It is the direct ancestor of photogravure, and of every photograph printed in a book since.
So this sheet is a photogram that became a copper plate: the plant's own shadow, drawn by the sun and then bitten into metal. Dandelion clocks, seed head after seed head, each a wheel of spokes with a dark seed at the end of every one.
What we measured
The museum photographed the sheet on a black ground. The sheet sits inset from the file edge by 101 to 110 pixels at the top, 84 to 90 at the bottom, 102 to 130 at the left and 93 to 114 at the right. The left figures fall as you go down and the right ones rise, which is a rotation of about four tenths of a degree in the museum's photograph. We do not straighten it: a rotation leaves empty corners, and those only go away by trimming inward.
We cut this sheet as close as a passepartout. Talbot's paper carries wide blank margins, the way a plate is printed on paper larger than itself. We do not reproduce all of that empty paper. We print the plate mark and about five millimetres of paper beyond it — the cut a framer makes when the mat window is set just outside the plate mark. Everything Talbot put on the sheet is inside that rectangle, plate mark included; what falls away is bare margin.
The plate mark was located by the tonal step it leaves: left at x 196, right at x 2462, top at y 303, bottom at y 3292. That is 2266 × 2989 pixels against a catalogued plate of 9.4 × 12.5 cm — agreement to within a millimetre. Against the catalogued sheet width of 11.3 cm the file resolves 242.5 pixels per centimetre.
Why only two sizes
At original size the file delivers 616 dpi across the picture, twice the 300 dpi we hold as the floor. That reserve buys one honest enlargement: at 1.9× the print still carries 324 dpi. The floor arrives at about 2.05×, so we stop there.
How it measures against the rest
We measure the separation between motif and ground before admitting a work, in ΔE across the Lab colour space. Hokusai's Great Wave comes to 41.6; our threshold is 23. This sheet measures 36.9 over the central area and 38.2 over the whole of the printed rectangle; measured as the dark motif against the paper it reaches 61. It is the opposite case to Talbot's salt prints — a very dark motif on a light sheet rather than the other way round — and it reads at a distance.
What we are allowed to sell
The work. Made in 1858 or later, in Talbot's lifetime; he died in 1877. Public domain worldwide.
The photograph. The Metropolitan Museum of Art publishes this digitisation as open access, and the object returns as public domain from the museum's own collection API. Taken from the museum's own image server.
What we do not claim. A giclée reproduction printed with pigment inks. It is not an impression from Talbot's plate.
Framing this sheet
- 20 × 25 cm sheet
- A 20 × 25 cm frame, no mat. Nearest standard 10 × 8 in. Margins 4.83 cm each side, 5.43 above, 6.25 below.
- 30 × 40 cm sheet
- A 30 × 40 cm frame, no mat. Nearest standard 16 × 12 in. Margins 5.17 cm each side, 6.82 above, 7.85 below.
- If you mat it
- Cut the window three millimetres inside the printed rectangle on every side — that leaves the plate mark visible. Do not trim the sheet.
Please measure before you buy or cut. These figures describe the file we print from. Sheets are cut by machine to about a millimetre and frames vary between makers. We replace a print that arrives damaged or wrong; we cannot replace a frame or mat that turns out not to fit.
All records: museartis.com/pages/sheet-records · Questions: info@museartis.com