Villaggio
Medium
Salted paper print
Dimensions
15.2 x 10.1 cm (6 x 4 in.)
Classification
Photographs
Department
Photographs
Museum
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
Credit
Harris Brisbane Dick Fund, 1936
Accession Number
36.37 (7)
Tags
Art Historical Context
Welcome to the Metropolitan Museum of Art's photography collection, where William Henry Fox Talbot's *Villaggio* (1839) captures the dawn of a revolutionary medium. This intimate salted paper print, measuring just 6 x 4 inches, depicts a serene Italian village landscape featuring windmills, boats, and gentle waterways—likely inspired by Talbot's travels near Lake Como. The title, meaning "village" in Italian, evokes the of everyday Mediterranean life, rendered with remarkable clarity for its time. Talbot, a British inventor and scholar, was a pioneer of photography, developing the salted pape...
About the Artist
William Henry Fox Talbot · 1800–1877
William Henry Fox Talbot (1800–1877), a British polymath whose ingenuity transformed visual representation, was born on 11 February 1800 at Melbury House, Dorset, the only child of William Davenport Talbot of Lacock Abbey and Lady Elisabeth Fox Strangways, daughter of the 2nd Earl of Ilchester. His father died shortly after his birth, leaving the family in financial straits until his formidable mo...