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were taken with wet collodion, the process relatively
newly introduced by Archer, and the one British-in-
vented process which, at the time, all believed would
be free of patent restrictions. Talbot’s legal proceedings
against Martin Laroche and other wet collodion users
for claimed infringements of his calotype patent would
be initiated in 1854.
In America, where the daguerreotype had reigned
supreme for so long, even writers such as H. H. Snel-
ling were (perhaps grudgingly) changing their opinions
about the potential of the paper negative. Writing in the
Photographic Art Journal, at the end of 1852, Snelling
conceded that, “if we are to judge from the constantly
increasing demand for photogenic paper and paper
chemicals, it will not be long before photography on
paper will be as extensively practiced as the daguerrean
art. The beautiful results obtained by Messrs. Whipple
and Black, of Boston, have undoubtedly contributed
to enhance the interest in the paper processes.” The
writer made no attempt to conceal his opinion of the

standards of work being produced on the eastern side

of the Atlantic, continuing

These gentlemen have produced proofs upon paper far ex-

celling any of those coming from either English or French

manipulators. We consider them superior, because they

come from their hands in a fi nished state, fi ne in tone and

softness, excellent in color, and almost perfect in outline,

soundness and perspective, without the aid of the brush,

which cannot be said of the European photographs, they

being more or less retouched.

In an intriguing twist to the evolution of photography

in America where the daguerreotype had always been

practised freely, James Ambrose Cutting was granted

a patent for a slight variation on Archer’s collodion

negative and positive processes in 1854, and through it

attempted to control the development in America of the

one process which was, after the collapse of the action

against Laroche, freely available elsewhere at the time.

It took fourteen years for the issue to be resolved in

HISTORY: 4. 1850s

Fenton, Roger. The Wharfe and Pool

Below the Stride.

The Metropolitan Museum of Art,

Gilman Collection, Purchase, W.

Bruce and Delaney H. Lundberg Gift,

2005 (2005.100.8) Image © The

Metropolitan Museum of Art.