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

TITLE ON OBJECT: The Misty River
BOOK TITLE: P.H. Emerson, --Marsh Leaves.-- London: David Nutt, 1895, pl. VIII

ca. 1890 / print ca. 1895
PUBLISHER: David Nutt, London
photogravure print
15.0 x 19.6 cm.
Museum Purchase
GEH NEG: 42380
77:0018:0008

NON-GEH NUMBER: plate VIII

BIBLIOGRAPHIC REFERENCES:
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.//
GEH submitted this image, among others, to Museum Education Site Licensing Project - Round 2, 1996.//

INSCRIPTION: recto-(on tissue sheet covering image) (printed) "Plate VIII" "The Misty River" "To face page 75"

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, river
transportation, boat

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