Trafalgar Square, London, UK
(Henry Fox Talbot / Science & Society Picture Library / Getty)
Nelson´s Column in London’s Trafalgar Square was built to honor the British Admiral Horatio Nelson, killed in 1805 at the Battle of Trafalgar. The scene shown here seems to suggest industrious activity around the building works. However, when Talbot took this photograph, the building work had actually been halted while the government took over the project from the building committee, whose funds had run out.
Fox Talbot invented the Calotype process for making photographs, between 1835 and 1839. Using his revolutionary method, any number of prints could be made of a single image from the Calotype negative, unlike the Daguerreotype, which could not be reproduced at the time.
‘After the statue of Nelson was raised, it appeared as if it would fall, having nothing to counter-balance the upper, rather overhanging appearance of the body on the left side, so that they were obliged to add another coil of carved cable to the statue.’
George Scharf senior, illustrator, 1843
