New Hall of Lincoln's Inn, London c. 1841 - 1846

This photogenic drawing of the New Hall of Lincoln's Inn in London was made by William Henry Fox Talbot, one of photography's earliest practitioners. Talbot's choice of subject matter speaks to the cultural priorities of his time, around the 1840s. Lincoln's Inn, one of London's four Inns of Court, was where lawyers were trained. By photographing it, Talbot captured an important landmark of the British legal system. The building's gothic revival style connects it to a Romantic movement that looked back to the medieval period for inspiration, and the architecture implies permanence and tradition. As an art historian, my work is to place this image within the context of both photographic and British history. Primary sources, like legal documents and architectural plans, and secondary scholarship on photography and 19th-century Britain, can tell us more about this image and its cultural significance. The study of art is always a study of its institutional and social context.