Anna Atkins: Photographs of British Algæ: Cyanotype Impressions (Sir John Herschel's Copy)

Shortly after William Henry Fox Talbot announced his invention of photography in 1839, the amateur botanist Anna Atkins (1799–1871), daughter of a prominent British scientist, began to experiment with the medium. In 1843 she turned to her friend Sir John Herschel's recently discovered cyanotype process to publish her collection of native seaweeds. Over the next decade, Atkins printed and issued these bracingly modern photograms to her "botanical friends" in the form of hand-stitched fascicl...