TALBOT6301

122 Regent St ¹
5^th Feb^y 1850

To H F Talbot Esq^r

Sir

I send you a very beautiful specimen of Porcelain made by Davenport.² It is made for writing upon & is used in pocket books. It is not absorbent & there fore is useless for our purpose

It shows that Porcelain may be obtained in thin flat sheets beautifully regular in texture as seen by transmitted light I send it to show you how beautiful the substance is that we are about to employ.

It is very probable that if this very slab had been less “fired” it would have been just what we require would it not save trouble to apply to Davenport to “short fire” similar slabs for us

It may happen that his material is not adapted In that case he has only to try “Cockers” instead Cocker³ proposes sending to his nephew to make a few slabs at Etruria⁴ as there they have more practice in “batting” the clay i.e in throwing it forcibly upon a plaster of Paris block to incorporate the materials & get rid of the troublesome air bubbles that I mentioned in my last note. –

Will it not be better to go at once to Wedgwood & show him Davenport’s slab or shall I go to Davenport. I prefer Wedgwood because he is said to be the best maker & moreover M^r Newman⁵

I remain Sir Yours most obediently
T. A. Malone

P.S

In Liebigs Annual report on the progress of Chemistry &c The process for taking an Electrotype from a Daguerrotype & making it into a negative is ascribed to a M Poitevin ⁶

M^r Macaulay ⁷ the historian was at M^r Faraday’s lecture on Friday last⁸ & admired our Talbotypes exhibited in the library of the Royal Institution ⁹