Photograph (Albumen Print) Purporting to be a Group of Scientists, by Hughes & Edmonds, London, c.1860

Albumen print mounted on card. Signs of having been framed; rust stains on image. Artificial composite photograph purporting to be a group portrait of five scientists seated and standing around a table, with instruments. The heads are taken from separate photographs (probably commercial cartes de visite), most of the rest, including the background, table-cloth, instruments, and most or all of the subjects' bodies appears to be non-photographic. The subjects are Faraday, Huxley, Wheatstone (standing centre at back), Brewster, and Tyndall (standing right). The instruments depicted are a small telescope, leyden jar, morse key (held by Wheatstone), ?galvanometer, magneto-electric machine, and aneroid barometer (on the backdrop centre). Vertical format. Faraday died in 1867, so the date is in the period 1860-66. A smaller cabinet format version is 12099. Such an image may have been inspired by the publication in 1862 of the famous composite engraving of men of science of the year 1807-8 (see 11777).