Fox Talbot Arranges for "The Art Union Monthly Journal" to Include an Original Mounted Paper Photograph in their June 1846 Issue

Eager to show that paper photography was the equal to graphic media such as lithography, etching, steel and wood engraving, William Henry Fox Talbot, author of The Pencil of Nature, made a deal with Samuel Carter Hall, editor of the most important Victorian magazine on art, the Art Union Monthly Journal, to include one of his paper photographs in every copy of the June 1846 issue in Volume 8 of the journal. 

To make the approximately 6,000 calotypes needed for the Art Union issue, Fox Talbot's assistant and printer, Nicolaas Henneman, used every negative he could find in the shop. More than half of the images published in The Pencil of Nature (15 different images) also turn up in copies of the Art-Union. However, Henneman's print staff was not capable of such mass production, resulting in poor print quality. The paper was not properly exposed, nor well fixed or washed, and prints were sometimes badly pasted onto the magazine leaves. These factors caused the images to fade almost as soon as they were created, resulting in poor publicity for Talbot. Nevertheless, as few copies of Fox Talbot's The Pencil of Nature were issued, Vol. 8 of the Art Union Monthly Journal was the first periodical to be illustrated with a mounted paper photograph, and the photographs it included were the first paper photographs seen by a wide audience.

Gernsheim, Incunabula of Photography, No. 620.

Goldschmidt & Naef, The Truthful Lens (1980) p. 15.