This autotype (halftone) reproduction of Honesty– even with a pleasing brown overmat, cannot do justice to what the original gum print fitted within its copper repoussé frame surely did. The original must have been quite striking to see in person when first exhibited in 1901 at the Forty-sixth Annual Exhibition of the Royal Photographic Society in London. Fortunately, the rare publication: The Year’s Photographs 1901. London: Iliffe & Sons Limited, singled out Honesty for criticism:

MR. BLOUNT deserves congratulation for his motives in this work, which have evidently been to make it an artistic and telling one in every respect. His print at the New Gallery was a large one, and it was framed in a large and elaborately worked copper repoussé frame, evidently designed specially for the picture.

This frame and the size and shape of the print gave the effort an ambitious look, and it was apparent that the author wished to exhibit something that would rank as one of the important decorative photographs of the year. But his treatment of the subject has not quite risen to the necessary height of excellence.

He should know that it is next to impossible to show a head and shoulders in a long shaped panel of this sort without the aid of hands and arms, which, gracefully displayed, can alone fill the space with good ” lines.” The bunch of seed vessels does not meet these requirements in the least. It may be charged, like a tramp in a police-court, with “no visible means of support,” and the short-sighted and oblique gaze of the maiden who scrutinises it, does not make for the success of the selection. Yet there is no doubt that this picture gave a deal of real pleasure to many visitors to the gallery.