science · 22 June 1802 · 222 years ago
In 1802, “An account of a method of copying paintings upon glass and of making profiles by the agency of light upon nitrate of silver. Invented by T. Wedgwood, Esq.” was published in the Journals of the Royal Institution. Humphry Davy described the process in an article on behalf of Thomas Wedgwood (son of the famous English potter) who was working with Davy in the basement laboratory of the Royal Institution. Although they saw this chemical means could create images, neither Wedgwood nor Davy were able to permanently fix the images. Although this is cited as a precursor of photographic processes, Davy did not pursue it, and several decades passed before the more successful results achieved by Louis Daguerre and Henry Fox Talbot.
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