Masons at Work
Hill posed the figures-masons carving a griffin for the elaborate two-hundred-foot-high neo-Gothic monument to Sir Walter Scott-so naturally that the illusion of instantaneity is altogether convincing. It is precisely this looseness of formal structure and departure from painted convention that makes photographs such as this and Officer of the 92nd Gordon Highlanders so remarkable just five years into the history of the medium.
Artwork Details
- Title: Masons at Work
- Photography Studio: Hill and Adamson (British, active 1843–1848)
- Artist: David Octavius Hill (British, Perth, Scotland 1802–1870 Edinburgh, Scotland)
- Artist: Robert Adamson (British, St. Andrews, Scotland 1821–1848 St. Andrews, Scotland)
- Date: ca. 1844
- Medium: Salted paper print from paper negative
- Dimensions: 14.6 x 19.9 cm (5 3/4 x 7 13/16 in. )
- Classification: Photographs
- Credit Line: The Rubel Collection, Purchase, Anonymous Gift and Lila Acheson Wallace Gift, 1997
- Object Number: 1997.382.26
- Curatorial Department: Photographs
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