Sheet record — Thomson, Gothic Ruins, Famagusta, 1878

The record behind the framed sheet: the file we worked from, what we measured, which way round we print it, and what we are allowed to sell.

The framed sheet

Format: 50 × 40 cm, landscape, matte black wooden frame, plexiglass instead of glass. Supplied flat with the sheet, assembled on site.
Image: About 44 cm wide, the whole plate with its chipped edges and Thomson's handwritten captions. Nothing is cropped.
Tone: Neutral black and white, as the plate records it. No sepia added.

The sheet you have

Work: John Thomson (Scottish, 1837–1921), Gothic Ruins, Famagusta, Cyprus, 1878
Object: Wet-collodion glass negative, from the journey that produced Through Cyprus with the Camera, in the Autumn of 1878 (1879)
Held by: Wellcome Collection, London
Reference: 19000i
File: Wellcome Collection IIIF image service, processed positive, 5950 × 4056 px

What we measured

The Collection publishes this plate twice: as a processed positive of 5950 px and as an unprocessed photograph of the brown glass negative of about 3,750 px. We print from the positive. At about 44 cm of image width that is roughly 340 dpi; nothing is enlarged in software.

Which way round

Thomson wrote his captions on the emulsion side of the plate, so on a right-way print they read backwards. The Collection has published four of the six Cyprus plates in this series mirror-reversed, with the captions reading forwards. We print every plate right-way round, checked against the ground: at Kyrenia the castle stands on the east side of the harbour, at Famagusta the minaret of St Nicholas stands at the north-west corner of the cathedral.