The Photographic Society of Great Britain 1892 Salon Portfolio

In early 1893, The Photographic Society of Great Britain (forerunner of the RPS) produced this portfolio in a folder featuring seven pages of letterpress written by Alfred Horsley Hinton with commentary on the society’s 1892 annual salon (known as the Pall Mall Exhibition) and 12 individually mounted Glyptotype plates selected from the exhibition. A luxury item in its day, it was originally priced at 10s. 6d., (10 shillings, 6 pence or a half-guinea). The English firm Hazell, Watson & Viney under their imprint The Amateur Photographer issued the work with the plates done in Glyptogravure. (sic-as stated on portfolio cover)

Credited in the individual plate margins as Glyptotypes, these were actually very fine collotypes printed by Waterlow & Sons, Ltd.  London, with: Glyptotype. W. & S. Ltd. engraved in the lower left margin corner. Plates also include a title centered below each work in the margin and a photographer’s credit in the lower right margin.

This was the follow-up portfolio issued by Hazell, Watson & Viney, Ltd. of London to the 1891 folio featuring Photographs of the Year by the Photographic Society of Great Britain in 1892.  An advertisement in The Amateur Photographer’ Annual 1893 describes the folio:

“Photographs of the Year”
(Second Series)

Twelve Reproductions (15 by 10) India Tint Plate Sunk Mounts of NOTABLE PHOTOGRAPHS in the PALL MALL EXHIBITION of the Photographic Society of Great Britain.
Descriptive Letterpress both of the Reproductions and other Noticeable Photographs in the Exhibition.
Price 10s.  6d., post free.

London: Hazell, Watson, & Viney, LD.,
1, Creed Lane, Ludgate Hill, E.C.

The following details are learned from the website: Exhibitions of the Royal Photographic Society 1870-1915:

– 1892 [Thirty-seventh] Photographic Society of Great Britain Exhibition
– Held at 5A, Pall Mall East from 26 September to 10 November, describing 774 exhibits by 213 exhibitors.
– Judges and Selecting and Hanging Committee Members:
Abney, , Captain · Cembrano, Junr., F. P.,  · Debenham, W. E.,  · England, W.,  · Hollyer, F.,  · Pringle, A.,  ·Taylor, J. Traill,