Name: Cathedral in Aguas Calientes, Mexico
Brand: William Henry Jackson

Cathedral in Aguas Calientes, Mexico

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Photography / Valeria López Gálvez / México

About the Item

William Henry Jackson (American, 1843 - 1942) "Church of Guadalupe, Mexico". Vintage mammoth plate albumen print. c1883. Printed c1883. Plate number, title and credit in the negative. Sheet Size: 16 3/4 x 21 1/8 in. On original mount. William Henry Jackson was born in Keeseville, New York, on April 4, 1843, as the first of seven children to George Hallock Jackson and Harriet Maria Allen. Harriet, a talented water-colorist, was a graduate of the Troy Female Academy, later the Emma Willard School. Painting was his passion from a very young age. By age 19 he had become a skillful, talented artist of American pre-Civil-War Visual Arts, of whom Orson Squire Fowler wrote as being "excellent as a painter". After his boyhood in Troy, New York and Rutland, Vermont, in 1862 Jackson, guided by patriotic feelings joined as a private in Company K of 12th Vermont Infantry and fought in the American Civil War, including the battle of Gettysburg. He then returned to Rutland, VT, where he eventually got into creative crisis as a painter in post-Civil-War American society. Having broken his engagement to Miss Carolina Eastman he left Vermont forever, for the American West. In 1866 traveling by Union Pacific Jackson reached its end, a point some hundred miles west of Omaha, where he joined as a bullwhacker a wagon train heading west to Great Salt Lake, on the Oregon Trail. In 1867 he settled down in Omaha, NE and got into the photography business with his brother Ed. In 1869 Jackson won a commission from the Union Pacific Railroad to document the scenery along their route for promotional purposes. The following year, he got a last-minute invitation to join the 1871 U.S. government survey (predecessor of USGS) of the Yellowstone River and Rocky Mountains led by Ferdinand Hayden. Painter Thomas Moran was also part of the expedition, and the two artists worked closely together to document the Yellowstone region. Hayden's surveys (accompanied usually by a small detachment of the U.S. Cavalry) were annual multidisciplinary expeditions meant to chart the largely-unexplored west, observe flora (plants), fauna (animals), and geological conditions (geology), and identify likely navigational routes, so Jackson was in a position to capture the first photographs of legendary landmarks of the West. Jackson worked in multiple camera and plate sizes, under conditions that were often incredibly difficult. His photography was based on the collodion process invented in 1848 and published in 1851 by Frederick Scott Archer. Jackson traveled with as many as three camera-types-- a stereographic camera (for stereoscope cards), a "whole-plate" or 8x10" plate-size camera, and one even larger, as large as 18x22". These cameras required fragile, heavy glass plates (photographic plates), which had to be coated, exposed, and developed onsite, before the wet-collodion emulsion dried. Without light metering equipment or sure emulsion speeds, exposure times required inspired guesswork, between five seconds and twenty minutes depending on light conditions. These photographs of Cathedral in Aguas Calientes, Mexico and Church of Guadalupe, Mexico were captured in 1883 when Jackson was documenting Missions and Churches of the Americas. The project most likely spun off of a Mexican Railway project in where Jackson's photographs were used to encourage travel to Mexico. A rare photographic portfolio of 24 images laid on board were sold on subscription. This portfolio is extremely rare and only one complete copy seems to have been located, the University of Virginia Library. Jackson's Mexican photographs, especially mammoth plates, are rare.

Creator:
William Henry Jackson (Artist)
Dimensions:
Height: 16.75 in (42.55 cm)Width: 21.13 in (53.68 cm)
Period:
19th Century
Date of Manufacture:
1883
Condition:
Seller Location:
New York, NY
Reference Number:
1stDibs: LU8889763514

21st Century and Contemporary Mexican Other Photography

Materials

Paper

Photography / Valeria López Gálvez / México

$680 Sale Price

32% Off