Constance Talbot (née Mundy, 30 January 1811 – 9 September 1880)[1] was an English artist credited as the first woman ever to take a photograph – a hazy image of a short verse by the Irish poet Thomas Moore.

[2] Constance, who came from Markeaton in Derbyshire,[3] was the youngest daughter of Francis Mundy (1771–1837), Member of Parliament for that county from 1822 to 1831.

[4] She married William Henry Fox Talbot, one of the key players in the development of photography in the 1830s and 1840s, in 1832.

[3] In 1833, during their honeymoon in Italy, her husband realised that her artistic abilities were superior to his, and began to develop a method to capture a view without draughtsmanship, which led to the negative-positive process of photography.

[6] Her watercolours and drawings remained hidden at Lacock Abbey, Fox Talbot's home, until they were digitised by the National Trust and made publicly available.