Plate Number 740. Bactrian camel galloping

Art Historical Context

Step into the pioneering world of motion photography with *Plate Number 740. Bactrian Galloping* by Eadweard Muy, created in 1887. This collotype print, measuring 22.23 × 33.66 cm, captures a rare sequence of a Bactrian camel in full gallop, part of Muybridge's monumental *Animal Locomotion*. Produced from high-fidelity photographs taken with his innovative battery of up to 24 cameras triggered by the animal's movement, it freezes the camel's exotic gait—those distinctive double humps swaying rhythmically—revealing nuances invisible to the naked eye. Muybridge, a British-American photographer, revolutionized visual science in the late 19th century through chronophotography, bridging art, anatomy, and early film. His work debunked myths about animal motion (like the old idea of all four hooves leaving the ground) and influenced luminaries from Thomas Edison to Marcel Duchamp. The collotype medium, a precise photomechanical process, allowed mass reproduction of these sequential images, making scientific marvels accessible. Housed in the National Gallery of Art's Corcoran Collection, this plate invites us to marvel at how a "humpbacked" desert traveler from Central Asia became a star in Victorian studies of movement. A testament to curiosity and ingenuity, it reminds us that art can gallop ahead of science! (198 words)

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...