Before the twentieth century, botany was one of the few spaces in which women were free to express their curiosity about the natural world. Anna Atkins was one of its pioneers. As well as producing studies of algae and ferns, she adopted a new photographic approach to document her finds.
She showed an early talent for art and science. The engravings in her father’s English translation of French naturalist Jean-Baptiste Lamarck’s book were based on her illustrations of molluscs. Natural history illustrations up to this point were typically hand-drawn, printed as woodcuts or engravings and often hand-coloured. Well-known exponents of this method included German entomologist Maria Sibylla Merian, British American physician Elizabeth Blackwell and English illustrator Sarah Drake.
Earlier that year, English photography pioneer William Fox Talbot had shown the society images of leaves produced by his calotype process. It used light-sensitive paper and a camera to control the long exposures. Children, who was living in his daughter’s home after the death of his third wife, corresponded eagerly with Talbot about the new technique, reportedly buying Anna a camera, although none of her efforts at calotypy have survived.
In October 1843, Atkins produced 15 copies of an edition of her first album for her botanical friends. This publication pre-dated, by several months, Talbot’s, a collection of calotype prints that he had advertised as the first work ever published with photographic plates.
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