Jump to image

P.H. Emerson
English (b. Cuba, 1856-1936)

TITLE ON OBJECT: The Fetters of Winter
BOOK TITLE: P.H. Emerson, --Marsh Leaves.-- London: David Nutt, 1895, pl. III

ca. 1890 / print ca. 1895
PUBLISHER: David Nutt, London
photogravure print
11.3 x 18.7 cm.
Museum Purchase
77:0018:0003

NON-GEH NUMBER: plate III

BIBLIOGRAPHIC REFERENCES:
Newhall, Nancy. --P.H. Emerson: The Fight for Photography as a Fine Art.-- Millerton, NY: Aperture, 1975. p. 237.//
McWilliams, Neil, ed. & Sekules, Veronica, ed. --Life and Landscape: P.H. Emerson, Art & Photography in East Anglia, 1885-1900.-- Norwich, England: Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts, 1986. p. 121.//
Handy, Ellen & Lukacher, Brian & Rice, Shelly. --Pictorial Effect/Naturalistic Vision: The Photographs and Theories of Henry Peach Robinson and Peter Henry Emerson.-- NOrfolk, Virginia: The Chrysler Museum, 1994. p. 55.//
GEH submitted this image, among others, to Museum Education Site Licensing Project - Round 2, 1996.//

Emerson, P.H. --Marsh Leaves.-- (with sixteen photo-etchings from plates taken by the author) London: David Nutt, 1895. pl. III.//

INSCRIPTION: recto-(on tissue sheet covering image) (printed) "Plate III" "The Fetters of Winter" "To face page 20"

NOTES: Catalogued 10/93, DZ. "--Marsh Leaves-- was Emerson's last published book of photographic works. The photographs were probably taken partly on the same year- long cruise on the Broads where he shot the material for --On English Lagoons-- [1890] and on his last cruise in the summer of 1893, after which he sold 'The Maid of the Mist'. Ironically, --Marsh Leaves-- contains Emerson's most distinguished and most impressionistic work. The influence of Hokusai, whose prints had caused him to doubt the value of photography as art, is quite evident. This seems to be the earliest body of photographic work to show Japanese influence. Also, the misty quality he achieved in his landscapes is strongly reminiscent of Whistler's 'Nocturnes'. The last plate in the book is taken from Plate IX 'The Wealth of the Marshland' from --Idyls of the Norfolk Broads-- and entitled 'The Last Gate' as if to symbolize the end of an era. From surviving correspondence with J. Harvard Thomas, it is clear that Emerson had decided by 1895 to give up photography and turn instead to writing." [--Life and Landscape: P.H. Emerson Art & Photography in East Anglia 1885-1900--, p. 39] "Printed by T. & A. Constable, printers to Her Majesty..."

SUBJECTS:
landscape, winter
landscape, river
transportation, boat

Jump to text

Reposition image