William Henry Fox Talbot developed the first cameras to make photographic negatives, from which multiple prints could be made. He built on the optical principles of aids used by artists - the camera lucida and camera obscura. Employing sheets of writing paper prepared with washes of silver nitrate and common salt, Talbot used wooden cameras, including this one, to develop the process. It was a significant improvement on the previous Daguerre system, which used a polished, silver-plated, copper plate for each image.

Inv. 1937-344