Salted paper

Salt print

Description

A type of photographic printing out paper. Developed by William Henry Fox Talbot, salted paper was prepared by directly soaking paper in a solution of table salt then treating it with silver nitrate. By 1841, salted paper was made with a thin salt-filled gelatin coating that was dried then treated with silver nitrate to form a photosensitive silver halide compound. Gelatin was most commonly used as a binder, but other materials such as Albumen, Arrowroot starch, Agar-agar, and Starch were also used. The image was produced by exposing the paper to the sun through a negative then fixed with potassium bromide or sodium thiosulfate solutions. By the 1860s, salted paper was replaced in popular use by albumen paper.

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Synonyms and Related Terms

salted-paper; plain salted paper; papier salé (Fr.)

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Authority

• Caring for your Collections, Arthur W Schulz (ed.), Harry N. Abrams, Inc. , New York, 1992 Comment: one of the earliest photographic printing process introduced in 1841

• James M. Reilly, Albumen & Salted Paper Book: The history and practice of photographic printing, 1840-1895, Light Impressions Corp., Rochester, NY, 1980 Comment: see chapter at http://albumen.stanford.edu/library/monographs/reilly/chap11.html

• E.J.LaBarre, Dictionary and Encyclopedia of Paper and Paper-making, Swets & Zeitlinger, Amsterdam, 1969

• Website address 1 Comment: Preservation 101 -glossary of terms at www.nedcc.org/p101cs/terms.htm - Invented by WHFT in 1841...popular until around 1860

• Website address 2 Comment: AMOL reCollections Glossary at http://amol.org.au/recollections/7/c/htm

• Luis Nadeau, Encyclopedia of Printing, Photographic, and Photomechanical Processes, Atelier, New Brunswick, 1997

• Thomas B. Brill, Light Its Interaction with Art and Antiquities, Plenum Press, New York City, 1980

• Art and Architecture Thesaurus Online, http://www.getty.edu/research/tools/vocabulary/aat/, J. Paul Getty Trust, Los Angeles, 2000