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Abstract
When William Stirling's book, the Annals of the Artists of Spain was published in 1848, its supplementary volume of Talbotype illustrations made it the first photographically illustrated art book, and heralded the use of the new medium of photography as the essential tool of the nascent discipline of art history. Only fifty copies of the Talbotypes volume were produced as presentation copies. Nevertheless, collectors with a special interest in the new process of reproduction occasionally succeeded in acquiring some of the individual unbound Talbotypes. Some of these rare and fragile images made their way into an album belonging to the bibliophile Edward Vernon Utterson, which is now in the British Museum. Like Stirling, Utterson produced a number of facsimiles of early printed books. Both men valued the quality and skills associated with the traditional arts of the book but at the same time, they were fascinated by new techniques of reproduction which they saw as a way of preserving and widening appreciation of the book arts. The Talbotypes, however, had many shortcomings as reproductions of Spanish art, and Utterson, an accomplished watercolourist, instead filled most of the rest of the album with his own copies after Spanish art. But though he reverted to an older method of reproduction, the astonishingly bold style he adopted anticipates aspects of the reworking of Spanish Golden-Age art by modern artists.
When William Stirling's book, the Annals of the Artists of Spain was published in 1848, its supplementary volume of Talbotype illustrations made it the first photographically illustrated art book, and heralded the use of the new medium of photography as the essential tool of the nascent discipline of art history. Only fifty copies of the Talbotypes volume were produced as presentation copies. Nevertheless, collectors with a special interest in the new process of reproduction occasionally succeeded in acquiring some of the individual unbound Talbotypes. Some of these rare and fragile images made their way into an album belonging to the bibliophile Edward Vernon Utterson, which is now in the British Museum. Like Stirling, Utterson produced a number of facsimiles of early printed books. Both men valued the quality and skills associated with the traditional arts of the book but at the same time, they were fascinated by new techniques of reproduction which they saw as a way of preserving and widening appreciation of the book arts. The Talbotypes, however, had many shortcomings as reproductions of Spanish art, and Utterson, an accomplished watercolourist, instead filled most of the rest of the album with his own copies after Spanish art. But though he reverted to an older method of reproduction, the astonishingly bold style he adopted anticipates aspects of the reworking of Spanish Golden-Age art by modern artists.
Cuando se publicó el libro de William Stirling, Annals of the Artists of Spain en 1848, su tomo suplementario de ilustraciones en talbotipo lo convirtió en el primer libro de arte con ilustraciones fotográficas y anunció el uso del nuevo medio de la fotografía como herramienta esencial para la naciente disciplina de historia del arte. Sacaron sólo cincuenta ejemplares del volumen de talbotipos como ejemplares de cortesía. No obstante, algunos coleccionistas con interés especial por el nuevo proceso de reproducción consiguieron la adquisición de unos de los talbotipos sueltos sobrantes. Algunos ejemplos de tales imágenes raras y frágiles lograron encontrarse en un álbum perteneciente al bibliófilo Edward Vernon Utterson, ahora en el British Museum. Igual que Stirling, Utterson publicó varias ediciones en facsímil de libros impresos de primera época. Uno y otro estimaban la calidad y las habilidades de las artes tradicionales del libro al mismo tiempo que les fascinaban las nuevas técnicas de reproducción, percibiendo éstas como un modo de conservación y ampliación del aprecio de las artes del libro. Sin embargo, los talbotipos tenían muchos defectos como reproducciones del arte español y siendo el mismo Utterson un diestro acuarelista, decidió rellenar un buen número de ejemplos del álbum con sus propias copias del arte español. Aunque volvió a un método más antiguo de reproducción, su estilo audaz asombra por su anticipación de algunos de los rasgos de la reelaboración del arte español del Siglo de Oro por parte de los pintores modernos.