[Rarebooks] FS: 1865 Fake 18th Century 'Photographs' Found - Matthew Boulton & Lunar Society

[Joslin Hall Rare Books]

“Remarks concerning Certain Pictures supposed to be Photographs of Early 
Date”  By M.P.W. Boulton. Published in London by Bradbury & Evans in 
1865.

"In November, 1863, Mr. Smith, Curator of the Museum of Patents at South 
Kensington, laid before the Photographic Society evidence purporting to 
show that photography had been practised at Soho in the last century, 
and pictures were exhibited supposed to be specimens of the photographs 
then made. These consisted of two classes, viz., several paper pictures 
and two metal plates. The paper pictures were generally admitted to be 
of the date assigned, and to be specimens of a peculiar mode of making 
copies practised at Soho about 1780. The metal plates were generally 
admitted to be photographs; but the date of their production was 
questioned".

At which point M.P.W. Boulton stepped into the "picture"...

Matthew Piers Watt Boulton was the grandson of Matthew Boulton who, with 
his partner, James Watt, had invented a steam engine, an electroplating 
process for silver, and many other useful things in Soho at the end of 
the 18th century and beginning of the 19th. M.P.W. Boulton soon found 
himself intimately involved in the controversy over the "photographs", 
as it was a servant of his named Price who had first come up with them, 
claiming they had been given to him by a Miss Wilkinson, Boulton's aunt, 
after having lain undisturbed in her library at Soho for 50 years. The 
man Price was thought to be honorable, which made for a confused case, 
since his assertion that Miss Wilkinson's library had been shut up for 
50 years was demonstrably untrue, as Boulton knew. Price also alleged 
that the Lunar Society, a group composed of Matthew Boulton, James Watt, 
Joseph Priestly, Josiah Wedgwood, Erasmus Darwin, William Hershel, and 
others, had made the photographs in a tent using a method that sounded 
something like a camera obscura. At about this time it was discovered, 
in an entirely different affair, that Price was not as honorable as all 
that after all, and that he had "engaged in most dishonest practices 
carried on under the cover of gross falsehoods".

Price promptly fled the country to avoid prosecution, and Boulton 
published the first edition of this pamphlet in 1864, relating these 
points and supplying several illustrations showing that the photographs 
in question did not, in fact, represent the houses they were claimed to 
represent in 1780, and there the matter should have dropped, except that 
somehow such matters never do. The original pamphlet brought on 
criticisms and replies, to which Boulton replied, and so on, and so on, 
to several editions, each a bit lengthier than the one before, 
culminating in this 74-page, 3rd edition in 1865. By the time we got 
here much of the material was of the "he said, she said" variety, a 
scholarly refutation of critics' points, parsed subordinate clause by 
subordinate clause. Boulton was still unable to convince certain people 
that Price was lying about the library, which understandably annoyed 
him.

Of more interest, perhaps, is the continued discussion about the two 
paper pictures, "specimens of a peculiar mode of making copies practised 
at Soho about 1780". What this "mode" was cannot quite be determined, 
but it seems to have been a mechanical reproduction technique using 
films and pigments which allowed color reproductions to be made, 
mechanically, from original paintings. The argument after that devolves 
into discussions of mezzotints, hand-coloring, pricing, catalogs and 
other technicalities all of a more or less speculative nature as Messrs. 
Boulton and Watt never did really describe the technique satisfactorily 
and abandoned it after a short time as not being especially profitable. 
The discussion will be of great interest to historians of art, I am 
sure, while fans of photographs and fakes may take satisfaction in the 
enjoyment of a good tale of a rather brazen attempt at photographic 
fraud of an especially early date.

Matthew Piers Watt Boulton would go on to be every bit as inventive and 
industrious as his famous grandpapa, translating classics, producing 
papers on solar heating and metaphysics, and coining the name "aileron" 
and getting a patent for this important aerial advance.

Self-wrappers; stitched; 6.5"x8.5", 74 pages, 4 lithographic plates. 
Some minor soil and light wear. [382/38468]  $200

Some Pictures =>
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