Plate Number 348. Wrestling, Graeco-Roman

Art Historical Context

Eadweard Muybridge’s *Plate Number 348. Wrestling, Graeco-Roman* (1887) belongs to his groundbreaking series *Animal Locomotion*, a systematic study of human and animal movement. Working at the University of Pennsylvania, Muybridge arranged banks of cameras triggered by electromagnetic shutters to freeze rapid action in successive frames. The resulting collotype print records two wrestlers locked in a classic hold, their bodies suspended mid-motion with anatomical precision. Collotype, a fine photomechanical process capable of rendering subtle tonal gradations, allowed these scientific images to circulate as high-quality plates. Though created for research into physiology and locomotion, the sequence possesses striking visual rhythm; each frame reveals shifting weight, muscle tension, and balance that the naked eye could not perceive. Muybridge’s work profoundly influenced later artists and filmmakers, laying essential groundwork for the development of cinema. Acquired by the Corcoran Gallery the year it was published and now in the National Gallery of Art, the sheet remains a compelling reminder of photography’s dual role as both objective document and expressive art form.

About the Artist

Eadweard Muybridge · 1830–1904

Eadweard Muybridge (1830-1904) was an English-American photographer who revolutionized the understanding of motion through his pioneering chronophotographic studies. Born Edward James Muggeridge in Kingston upon Thames, England, he emigrated to America and became famous first for his dramatic landscape photographs of Yosemite Valley, then for his groundbreaking motion studies that proved horses li...