This week we are guest bloggers on the wonderful Whitehall Historic House Cheam blog who are currently running a small exhibit at Cheam Library called Dog Days of Summer. It features a Knights-Whittome photograph: Miss Pothecary’s Dog with research by Emily Bird of Nonsuch High.
This month’s object is brought to you by guest blogger Abby Matthews, Project Officer of London Borough of Sutton Local Studies & Archives Centre’s The Past on Glass project!
Miss Pothecary’s Dog, photographed by David Knights-Whittome 6 Sep 1911
Poodle, with Bow, On Table Anonymous American Photographer
In 2009 one of the oldest known photographs of a dog was sold at Sotheby’s New York for $8,125. The image was a daguerrotype entitled Poodle with Bow on Table, taken by an unknown photographer in the 1850’s. A daguerreotype is a direct positive image that is made in the camera on a highly polished silvered copper plate. The plate was sensitised with chemicals, exposed, and then developed over hot mercury before being fixed in a solution of sodium thiosulfate or salt and then toned with gold chloride. The earliest process involves a long exposure time of anywhere between 3-15 minutes which…
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