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SALTED PAPER PRINT
managed by his eldest son Alfred. A number of talented
photographers worked in Saché’s studios, including G.
W. Lawrie, with who he went into partnership as Saché
& Lawrie between 1880 and 1882. During his twenty
years in India, Saché traveled extensively throughout
northern India, covering major sites and towns, and
produced an accomplished collection of images, proving
himself a master of the picturesque composition.
Stephanie Roy
SALTED PAPER PRINT
More concisely known as the salt print, the name im-
plies the method of its preparation: fi ne quality paper
was soaked in a dilute (ca. 1–2%) solution of common
salt (sodium chloride) and dried. One side was then
brushed over with a concentrated (ca. 20%) solution
of silver nitrate, thus precipitating light-sensitive silver
chloride within the paper fi bres. Exposure to sun- or
daylight through a contact negative caused a positive
image in silver to print-out as minute particles of the
metal trapped within the fi bres of the paper surface.
Such photographs on plain paper therefore carry no
signifi cant layer of colloidal binder; their matte surface
distinguishes salt prints from those coated with glossy
layers of hardened colloid, such as albumen, gelatin,
or collodion, to bind the silver particles in suspension.
Between these extremes there also exist intermediate
examples of lightly colliferized prints.
The light sensitive chemistry of salt prints is essen-
tially that of the fi rst successful photographic process
on paper: the photogenic drawing paper (q.v.) invented
by William Henry Fox Talbot in 1834. The term ‘salt
print’ is a later neologism (Hardwich 1855). Talbot
originally stabilised his photogenic drawings with fi x-
ing agents—either saturated (ca. 32%) sodium chloride,
or (ca. 2%) potassium iodide—but rather ineffectively,
because the residual silver chloride remained slightly
light-sensitive. Fixation with these halides was soon
displaced by ‘hyposulphite of soda’ (still used today
as ‘hypo,’ but properly, sodium thiosulfate), Sir John
Herschel’s innovation of 1839, which completely re-
moved the excess silver chloride.
Salt prints fi xed in a fresh hypo solution have a
reddish- or yellowish-brown color that is affected by
the paper sizing agent: the animal gelatin used for
British papers afforded warmer image tones than the
starch sizing of French papers. Such colors were com-
monly considered unpleasing, but with continuing use
any hypo fi xer bath was seen to yield more satisfying
print colors of rich brown, as silver salts accumulated
within it. This observation, publicised by Louis-Désiré
Blanquart-Evrard in 1850, caused photographers to
age their hypo baths artifi cially, by deliberately adding
silver nitrate. The same effect was discovered in some
cheaper substances: nitric acid, iodine, and iron(III)
salts—all are oxidising agents that convert thiosulfate
into polythionates, capable of partially sulfi ding the
silver image, to good effect. However, the optimum point
of this procedure was very critical: if the paper were not
fully washed free of excess fi xer, it slowly converted the
entire image to silver sulfi de, with consequent fadingSache, John. The Taj Mahal, Agra,
India.
The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles
© The J. Paul Getty Museum.