TABLE OF CONTENTS

Biographical Sketch
 

Scope and Contents of the Collection
 

Index Terms
 

Administrative Information 
 

Contact Information
 

Detailed Description of the Collection

F. Maxwell Lyte fonds:

Finding Aid

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Biographical Sketch

Farnham Maxwell Lyte (1828-1906) was a British 19th century photographer and inventor, who studied chemical engineering at Cambridge University and later became an Associate of the Society of Civil Engineers. He first encountered photography in 1844 at the age of sixteen when he heard about William Henry Fox Talbot's invention of the "calotype". With his background in chemistry, Lyte quickly grasped new photographic techniques. He became one of the many photographers who began to examine ways of improving the wet-collodian process by extending the longevity of the sensitized plate, publishing the results of his investigations into what became known as the "honey process" in the June 17, 1854 issue of the British journal Notes and Queries.

In 1856 Lyte and his family moved to the town of Bagnères-de-Bigorre, where he continued his investigations into the improvement of photographic processes. He published his findings on the presence of "anti-chlors" in paper (an agent used in paper manufacturing that posed a danger to the chemical stability of silver prints) in The British Journal of Photography in April 1862. Lyte also published his findings on several other discoveries and inventions related to wet-collodion photography. Lyte had an interest in the natural history of the Pyrenean region. He was one of the first members of the Société Ramond, a group of amateur scientists who investigated the natural history of the area. In addition to his photographic investigations, Lyte was a photographer himself, often photographing the landscape and architecture of his new home and the engineering projects that were taking place in the Pyrenean. In 1858 a number of Lyte's photographs were included in a catalogue of 108 photographs of the Pyrenean entitled, Vues, costumes et monuments des Pyrénées, copies de grands maîtres. Lyte was one of the first photographers to use the technique of superimposing the image of the sky from one negative onto the scene from another negative. Several of Lyte's photographs were shown in exhibitions sponsored by the Société Française de Photographie from approximately 1857 to 1863, an organization Lyte helped found. He also exhibited his photographs as early as 1855 in Paris, London, and Glasgow and showed his work almost every year until 1865. Lyte gave up photography not long after moving his family to Dax, a town northwest of Bagnères, around 1867. Lyte returned to England towards the end of his life and died in London in March 1906.

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Scope and Contents of the Collection

Source of supplied title proper: Title based on contents of collection. 
Immediate source of acquisition: Donated to the National Gallery of Canada Library and Archives by M.C. John Lewall, David B. Lewall, and Edward F. Lewall in July 2002.
Finding aids: Item level description available.
The collection of the National Gallery includes photographs by F. Maxwell Lyte as well as portrait photographs of him.

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Administrative Information

Preferred Citation

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Contact Information

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Detailed Description of the Collection

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