Benjamin Brecknell Turner | The Mill Stream, Boulter's Lock, circa. 1880s

Benjamin Brecknell Turner

The Mill Stream, Boulter's Lock, circa. 1880s

large carbon print (visible area 360 x 435mm.) mounted on card, matted, framed and glazed

A RARE CARBON PRINT BY ONE OF BRITAIN'S EARLIEST AMATEUR PHOTOGRAPHERS.

In 1849 Benjamin Brecknell Turner (1815-1894) took out a licence from William Henry Fox Talbot to practice calotype (paper negative) photography. He soon mastered this form of photography and went on to produce many fine images during the 1850s. Turner joined the newly formed Photographic Society (later the Royal Photographic Society), taking part in exhibitions and was a contributor to the Photographic Society Album of 1857 (see lot 146).

In 1875 Turner exhibited two recent prints at the Photographic Society's annual exhibition. "They were enlargements in the carbon process, a permanent pigment process which generally became available from around 1865, from his calotype negatives of the early 1850s ... He showed two more carbon print enlargements at the annual exhibition of 1881, but this time they were from the newly introduced gelatine dry-plate negatives. Some of these survive and show that he had successfully translated the quality of his early pictures into the new technique. His late work followed the lines of his great period in the 1850s: it is large, striking and meticulous ... featuring sturdy rural bridges, vigorous trees and handsome mills" (Haworth-Booth).

LITERATURE:

Martin Barnes, Mark Haworth-Booth and Malcolm R. Daniel. Benjamin Brecknell Turner: Rural England through a Victorian lens. London: V&A Publications, 2001, p.31