
4 min read
Collecting Early Photography
Nineteenth-century photography is collected as much for process as for image. This guide sets out the principal early processes, how to recognise them, and what condition means for each.
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Knowledge centre
Photographic processes, printing dates and vintage material.

The full historic range: daguerreotypes, salt prints, albumen prints, platinum and palladium prints, carbon prints, gelatin silver prints, dye transfer and chromogenic colour, and contemporary pigment prints. The process is always stated in the catalogue because it governs both value and conservation.
Read the full answerA vintage print is one made by or under the direct supervision of the photographer at or close to the time the negative was exposed. Later prints from the same negative are catalogued as such, and the distinction has a substantial effect on value.
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4 min read
Nineteenth-century photography is collected as much for process as for image. This guide sets out the principal early processes, how to recognise them, and what condition means for each.
Read the guide

3 min read
Modern and contemporary photography raises questions of edition, printing history and attribution that do not arise elsewhere. This guide explains what to establish before buying a twentieth-century print.
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