Plate Number 495. Miscellaneous phases of the toilet

Art Historical Context

Eadweard Muybridge *Plate Number 495. phases of the toilet*1887) captures a sequence of everyday human motion, part of his groundbreaking *Animal Locomotion*. A pioneer in photography, Muybridge used banks of up to 24 cameras triggered by electro-mechanical devices to freeze rapid successive actions, proving that even a trotting horse has all four hooves off the ground at once. This collotype print depicts a nude female figure in various stages of grooming and dressing—Victorian-era "toilette"—revealing the grace and mechanics of routine movements with scientific precision. Printed via collotype, a photomechanical process that produced richly detailed, high-fidelity reproductions from a single negative, the plate measures 19.6 × 36 cm and was acquired by the Corcoran Gallery in 1887. Muybridge's work bridged art and science, influencing early cinema and modern motion studies. Acquired as part of the Corcoran Collection, it now resides in the National Gallery of Art's photography department. Today, this image fascinates for its blend of intimacy and analysis, offering a window into 19th-century views of the body in motion while highlighting photography's power to dissect the mundane into the extraordinary.

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...