Palace of the Caesars on the Palatine
Medium
Albumen print
Dimensions
Image, oval: 30.7 × 39.9 cm (12 1/8 × 15 3/4 in.); Paper: 49.2 × 64.4 cm (19 3/8 × 25 3/8 in.)
Classification
albumen silver print
Department
Photography and Media
Museum
Art Institute of Chicago
Accession Number
100109
Rights
Public Domain
About this artwork
Robert MacPherson moved to Rome in 1840, working as a landscape painter and art dealer until he began practicing photography in 1851. A new class of tourists—beyond the coterie of aristocrats who had initially popularized the Grand Tour—had begun traveling to Italy, and MacPherson quickly opened a photography studio to sell his high-quality prints of famous sculptures and architectural sites. For this view, he aimed his camera toward the southeast from the ruins of the Palace of the Caesars on P...
About the Artist
Robert MacPherson · 1811–1872
Robert Macpherson (1811–1872) was a Scottish artist who began his career in medicine before pivoting to painting and ultimately pioneering photography in Rome. Born in the Tayside region near Edinburgh, he enrolled at the University of Edinburgh in 1831 to study medicine but left without graduating after four years. He then trained at the Royal Scottish Academy, where he exhibited portraits from 1...