Early on, Talbot was drawn repeatedly to sculpture as a test of the calotype's capacities. In a time when exposures were measured in multiple minutes, sculpture was not simply a stand-in for human subjects but a preferred requisite—offering precisely the kind of fixed form that early photographic experimentation relied on. The unchanging nature of these still objects allowed Talbot to make more accurate comparisons during experimentation, and to study how light and shadow could render three-dimensional forms on a flat photographic surface.

Like two of the other early photographs we are offering, the print comes from a descendant of Robert Murray, an instrument maker, supplier of photographic chemicals, and a figure closely connected to both Talbot and Nicolaas Henneman.