Glass plate negatives

Owing to Prince Albert (1819-61) and Queen Victoria’s (1819-1901) extensive commissioning of photographers, their collection includes a significant number of early nineteenth-century glass plate negatives.

The negatives are an important material record of early photographic processes and provide an insight into the working methods of photographers, including Roger Fenton (1819-69), Frances Sally Day (1816-92), Martin Laroche (1814-86) and Joseph Cundall (1818-95), and the early means of documenting works of art by photography. The negatives also reveal the editing and cataloguing process undertaken by photographers in association with the royal family. Where negatives have been scratched, it can be assumed the negative image was unfavourably received by the royal family. Numbers scratched into the plate reveal cataloguing systems undertaken by the royal family since the nineteenth century.

The collection of glass plate negatives includes intimate family portraits, views of royal residences and portraits of soldiers from the Crimea conflict and notable Victorian actors.