This item from the library collection is what I like best at the university. It's made by William Henry Fox Talbot and is a copy of a wood engraving of a peregrine falcon after Thomas Bewick. What makes it so beautiful is how it shows the purity and simplicity of a complex photographic experiment. It's fascinating that this chemical experiment with light is still visible to us.
William Henry Fox Talbot is considered one of the inventors of photography. Expert Larry Schaaf dates this work between 1 January and 31 December 1839.