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Portraits, images of castles and churches and towns in Scotland, Italy,
Belgium and Malta.
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Volume
One
206 prints. |
Volume
Two
126 prints. |
The contents of two of the albums of the Edinburgh Calotype Club are displayed on this website. Recent research has revealed that the album purchased by the National Library of Scotland in December 2001, belonged to the Tennent family and was probably compiled by Hugh Lyon Tennent (1817-1874).Until now this album was unrecorded and it is likely that there were at least three if not more albums produced by members of the Edinburgh Calotype Club.
The Tennent album has ‘Vol. 1’ in gilt on the spine, giving rise to speculation that there were further volumes compiled. In terms of the size of the album and the way in which the calotypes were mounted, it is clearly a companion to the album now held in Edinburgh Central Library. The calotypes in each album were numbered, some initialled and both albums have manuscript indexes in contemporary hands. One index was compiled by Hugh Lyon Tennent, the other probably by James Francis Montgomery or a member of his family. These indexes are invaluable documents which enable us to discover a wealth of information about Scotland and its people in the 1840s.
Volume one was purchased at auction in December 2001 by the National Library of Scotland and Edinburgh City Council, with the support of the Heritage Lottery Fund, the National Art Collections Fund and the Gordon Fraser Charitable Trust. It contains 206 prints, many of which were taken between March and October 1848. About 60 of the prints in volume one also appear in the volume held by Edinburgh Central Library, which we have termed ‘volume two’. There are more portraits in volume one, though fewer English and foreign views, compared to volume two.
Volume two: Two albums were known to be in the possession of the Montgomery family around 1885*. Edinburgh City Library purchased one of these, from the Montgomery family around 1952*. It contains 126 prints taken roughly between 1845 and 1858, One of the conditions of the sale was that the seven portraits of family members be excluded and replaced by contact photo-copies. Some album pages have been annotated by members of the Montgomery family. This, along with the manuscript index bound in at the back of the volume, has helped greatly in identifying many of the sitters and photographers.
The photographs in both albums are a mixture of portraits, landscapes, buildings and sculptures. The places photographed include Edinburgh, Newhaven, St. Andrews, Fairlie, Innerleithen, Inverness, Oxford, Plymouth, Rome, Naples, Malta, ‘Port Philip’ (possibly modern Melbourne, Australia) and Ghent. Indeed some of the photographs taken in Italy and Malta (notably those of the Colisseum , the Temple of Vesta in Rome and the panorama of Valletta) are nearly identical to calotypes taken by the pioneering photographer, the Rev. Calvert R. Jones in 1846*. There are many photographs of Scottish country houses and castles including those at Traquair, Balcarres, Cawdor, Huntly, Dunrobin and Loch Leven. There is a disproportionately high number of pictures taken in and around Fairlie in Ayrshire, the home of the Tennent family, two of whom were members of the club. Predictably enough there are many photographs of the members of the club themselves and their families and friends.
Evidence that a third album exists stems from an article written around 1885, but not published until 1928*. The author mentions photographs of Edinburgh and Stirling Castles, Glamis, Melrose, Antwerp, Rouen and Lima which do not appear in either of the existing albums. We would be interested in finding out more about this album in particular and about the Edinburgh Calotype Club in general. Please contact rarebooks@nls.uk if you have additional information.