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

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.

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

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.

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

Subtle, definitely. Interesting, sometimes.