3-086-135 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

The Prince of Wales opening the Royal Photographic Society's...Exhibition...Crystal Palace, 1898. 'The Society...was founded in 1853; and its object, "the advancement of photography," has surely been fully attained. No further proof of that statement is required than a glance round the exhibition...which comprises some six thousand picked specimens of the photographer's skill in what we need no longer hesitate to call his art. The collection is one which illustrates that progress, for it includes the first photograph ever taken - that by Niepce in 1826 - as well as specimens of the skill of Daguerre, Talbot, Bayard, Poitevin, Pouncey, and D. O. Hill. The original negatives of Dr. Maddox's gelatine-bromide process, which gave a new turn to photography, are on view; and the carbon process has a full representation. Cameras, of all patterns and patents, may be compared; and the most modern devices in colour-printing are made apparent. The relations of photography to science are fully set forth. The Prince, who is probably familiar with the first photograph taken of Queen Victoria as a great event, and whose father was one of the first patrons of the art, was received by the president of the photographers, the Earl of Crawford...'. From "Illustrated London News", 1898.