Cliché verre
Cliché-verre
- Date
- c. 1834 · confidence low
- Place
- Geneva, Switzerland
- Credited to
- William Henry Fox Talbot
- Field
- Communication
⚠️ Disputed: the sources disagree.
What it is
A semi-photographic printmaking technique in which a drawing made on a transparent surface is printed by contact onto light-sensitive paper, combining traditional printmaking with early photography.
The specific authorship of cliché verre is attributed to several photography and printmaking pioneers of the era; there is no clear consensus on who first practiced it.
What it led to
- influenced painter-printmakers such as Corot, who popularized it in the mid-19th century
- served as a technical bridge between traditional printmaking and photography
- allowed multiple, even mirrored, prints of an image from a single plate