In the natural course of things it must necessarily have occurred to
practical men to utilize photography in the case of terra-cotta, as it
has already been employed in connection with so many other wares; but I
have not to this day known of its successful application to terra-cotta.
Now this is strange, if one considers how fashionable _plaque_ and plate
painting have become of late, and the good photographic results that
are easily obtained on these as on sundry articles of this same "burnt
earth." Portraits, animals, landscapes, seascapes, and reproductions are
one and all easily transferred, whether for painting upon or to be left
purely photographic. As a matter of business, too, one fails to see
that it would not be remunerative, but rather the contrary. It was with
something of this feeling that I was led to try and see what could be
done to attain the end in view, and as I knew of no data to go by, I had
to use my own experience, or rather experiment on my own account.
Since emulsion was constantly at hand in my establishment, in the
commercial production of my gelatine dry plates, it was but natural I
should first have turned to this as a mode of obtaining the desired
results; but, alas! all attempts in that direction signally failed--the
ware most persistently refused to have anything to do with emulsion. The
bugbear was the fixing agent or hypo., which not only left indelible
marks, but, despite any amount of washing, the image on a finished plate
vanished to nothing at the end of an hour's exposure in the show window.
There was nothing left but to seek other means for the attainment of my
object. I would not have troubled the reader as to this unsuccessful
line of experiment but that I wished to put him on his guard and save
him useless researches in the same direction. To cut matters short, the
method I found best and most direct was the now old but still excellent
wet collodion transfer. I will now proceed to detail my system of
working to facilitate the matter to the inexperienced in collodion
transfer.