World's largest 19thC wet plate negatives

[lynnb]

The story of 19th-century gold miner Bernhardt Otto Holtermann's discovery in 1872 of the world's largest gold nugget (630lbs, or 286kg) at Hill End in NSW, Australia and use of some of the proceeds to photograph the Hill End goldfields and later, Sydney Harbour, is very interesting.

Now his wet plate negatives have been recognised by UNESCO as the world's largest 19th-century wet plate negatives, and for the technological achievement they represented at the time (SMH). The largest is 1.6m wide! These were made in 1875, using shop windows for the glass plates.

The Holtermann Collection of photographs is a national treasure here in Australia. The Gulgong Holtermann Museum also has a collection of his photographs.

More images on Google.

 

[xayraa33]

Thank you for the heads up on those 19th century photo sites.

The people in the wet-plate photos look like a rough bunch, very similar to the ones you see in the photos of the American Wild West from around the same period of time.

 

[mich rassena]

While interesting, I can't seem to find many images on the website. There are seven with the longest dimension of 300 pixels. I find that frustrating.