Lot 28: BENJAMIN BRECKNELL TURNER (1815-1894)

Walter Chamberlain hiding behind Bredicot pump Salt print from paper negative. Mid-1850s. Titled in pencil on reverse of mount. 10 1/8 x 11 7/8in. (25.8 x 30cm.) PROVENANCE From the artist; by descent to the present owner. LITERATURE For a detailed account of his life and photographic work, see: Barnes, Benjamin Brecknell Turner: Rural England through a Victorian Lens, V&A Publications, London, 2001. NOTES An intimate outdoor scene with Walter, one of eight children born to Turner and his wife Agnes (n‚e Chamberlain). Born in London in 1815, Turner joined the family candle and saddle soap business at the age of 16. In 1847, he married Agnes Chamberlain of the Worcester China family in the church at Bredicot in western England, where her father, Henry Chamberlain, had acquired the 17th-century farmhouse Bredicot Court a decade earlier. Turner first took up photography two years after his marraige in 1849 and became one of the first and one of the greatest British amateur photgraphers. No other prints of this image have been located to date.