This portfolio contains sixteen hand-pulled dust-grain photogravures of rare masterpieces from Britain’s greatest photographers, published in association with the Victoria and Albert Museum and the Philadelphia Museum of Art. The portfolio features important works by nineteenth-century masters of the medium such as Julia Margaret Cameron, Frederick H. Evans, Lady Hawarden, David Octavius Hill and Robert Adamson, Oscar G. Rejlander, Henry Peach Robinson, William Henry Fox Talbot, and Benjamin Brecknell Turner. Wherever possible, the plates have been made from the photographer’s original negatives, many of which were unavailable until production of this portfolio. Each image is printed on cotton rag, mold-made papers, with inks created especially for this project.

Thomas Annan was a Scottish photographer who utilized many photographic processes throughout his career. He made portrait and architectural photographs with equal ability, but is primarily remembered for his studies of the alleys and tenement buildings of Glasgow. The Old Closes & Streets of Glasgow (1868-71), a classic of documentary photography, has gone through multiple editions in albumen print, carbon print and photogravure portfolio, and book forms. He was the founder of the firm T. & R. Annan & Sons, and was the father of J. Craig Annan, also a noted photographer and photogravure expert.