The picture at right looks like a photograph of a white lace glove, carefully placed on a sky blue background. This image is, instead, a record of technological evolution, in photography and textiles.

Created in the mid-1840s by French inventor Hippolyte Bayard, the picture was made through the cyanotype process: A sheet of writing paper was coated with iron salts, dried, and then the glove was laid on top. When exposed to the sun for a few minutes, the paper turned blue everywhere except beneath the glove’s fine threads, producing a perfect blueprint image.

Gloves of this sort were worn frequently, not just by the  wealthy. They were typically knitted in silk or fine cotton. The technology for machine-knitting lace and net was only a few decades old at the time this was image made, and had been controversial when workers believed it might eliminate their jobs.

Although we see this as a white glove, black lace mitts appear more often than white in portrait photographs of the time. It’s possible the original was a stylish black glove, of which only a pale impression remains.