Glass Plate Negatives
400 glass plate negatives of Reed & Barton objects were donated to the Attleboro Area Industrial Museum (AAIM) in 2022. The 7 x 11 inch negatives appear to date from the 1870s through 1904. Many match engravings in the 1877 and 1885 Reed & Barton catalogs. It is possible that the photographs were created as tools for the in-house artists to use while creating those engraving plates.
Many of the images are unusual because the objects have a notably matte surface, some even seem to have been painted. This might have been useful for producing images without distracting reflections, allowing artists an easier path to faithful representations. Many of the negatives have paper borders to frame the image. Some have a tissue-paper band with item information and pricing typed on in reverse, creating useful catalog pages when printed.
In 2023 RISD Special Collections scanned these negatives as positive photos and now hosts high resolution digital scans of the images presented here. The original glass plate negatives remain at the AAIM.
