Unknown after Lake Price, William (1810-96; English)
A Brace of Birds
Photogalvanograph, c.29.2 x 24.4 cm
Gift of E.L.Grundy, 1868
National Gallery of Victoria (p.178.7-1)
Lake Price, regarded as an important innovator in mid 19th-century photography, trained as an architect with Pugin (see Pugin Oxford {1877} NGV [WT]), and then took up watercolour painting, printmaking and photography.
It seems somewhat unclear whether this work should be catalogued as a photograph or a print, and whether it should be considered an original work or a reproduction. The inscription below the image runs: “A Brace of Birds / Engraved from a Photograph by Lake Price, / London. Published May 1857, by the Photo-galvano-graphic Comp’y, Holloway.”
In 1984, the Getty Museum acquired another impression, with medium and size as indicated above, and also a print of the original photograph, titled The First of September, and dated 1855; both are listed by the Getty as original works by Lake Price. Another impression of the present work, in the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, is described as a “photoengraving” after the artist.
Refs.
PF (1868); AR 1870-71, p.35 (noting title only); not listed in NGV 1894 or 1905
The NGV catalogue lists this work as a mezzotint by an unknown artist after Edward Price [sic]
For Lake Price, see e.g. https://www.royalacademy.org.uk/art-artists/name/william-lake-price. For the Getty Museum works mentioned, see http://www.getty.edu/art/collection/objects/41982/william-lake-price-the-first-of-september-british-may-1-1855/ (photo) and http://www.getty.edu/art/collection/objects/41981/william-lake-price-the-first-of-september-a-brace-of-grouse-british-1857/ (print), both reproduced. Cf. https://www.mfah.org/art/detail/21747?returnUrl=%2Fart%2Fsearch%3Fculture%3DBritish%257CJapanese%26artist%3DR.%2BHoldgate (Houston impression)