Museum-Salt Prints

Museum Gift Shop

A   Selection of a few  Salt Prints from the cellar in our collection

The salt print was the dominant paper-based photographic process for producing positive prints (from negatives) from 1839 until approximately 1860.

The salted paper technique was created in the mid-1830s by English scientist and inventor Henry Fox Talbot. He made what he called "sensitive paper" for "photogenic drawing" by wetting a sheet of writing paper with a weak solution of ordinary table salt (sodium chloride), blotting and drying it, then brushing one side with a strong solution of silver nitrate. This produced a tenacious coating of silver chloride in an especially light-sensitive chemical condition. The paper darkened where it was exposed to light. When the darkening was judged to be sufficient, the exposure was ended and the result was stabilized by applying a strong solution of salt, which altered the chemical balance and made the paper only slightly sensitive to additional exposure. In 1839, washing with a solution of sodium thiosulfate ("hypo") was found to be the most effective way to make the results truly light-fast. (Wikipedia)

Singers. Salt Print.
Unknown Photographer

Bell Ringers. Salt Print

      
Armor. Salt Prints. Andreas Groll. 1857

German Family. Hand-colored salt print

Josiah Parsons Cooke.
Salt Print. John Adams Whipple  

George Washington's Tomb, Mt. Vernon, VA. 
Hand Colored Salt Print, Unknown Photographer

Hand-colored unidentified armed Civil War Soldier (before and after salt prints)

Woman, Flag, Sword, Fort. Hand-colored salt print

Antebellum American naval officer.
Salt print (attrib. Bogardus)

  Coldstream Guard.  Salt Print

Aunt Mary In Turkish Costume.  Salt Print

Major William Stephen Raikes Hodson
as the prince in Cinderella. 
"Hodson of Hodson's Horse."
Salt Print

  

Austrian Woman. 
Hand-painted salt print.

Civil War Corporal Benson and Mrs. Benson.
Hand-colored salt prints

Brady Salt Print (Samuel F. B. MORSE??)

Fireman
Brooklyn,  New York 

Claudius Berger
The Champion Billiard Player. 
Salt Print

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Washington Seminary Class,
Washington, Pennsylvania. Salt Prints

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