Plate Number 97. Turning to ascend stairs, with a pitcher and a goblet in hands

Art Historical Context

Step into the pioneering world of motion photography with *Plate Number 97. Turning to ascend, with a pitcher and goblet in hands* Eadweard Muy, created in 1887. This collotype print, part of Muybridge's groundbreaking *Animal Locomotion*, captures a nude female figure in mid-motion as she gracefully turns to climb stairs, balancing a pitcher in one hand and a gob in the other. Measuring 18.45 × 40.25 cm, it exemplifies the British-American photographer's obsession with dissecting human movement, sparked by his earlier horse-gallop experiments that proved all four hooves leave the ground—a revelation that shattered artistic conventions. Muybridge's technique involved 12 to 24 cameras triggered sequentially by the subject's movement across a gridded backdrop, producing sequential images on a single plate. This collotype, a precise photomechanical printing method, allowed mass reproduction of these studies, influencing early cinema pioneers like the Lumière brothers and Thomas Edison. Housed in the National Gallery of Art's Corcoran Collection, the work blends scientific precision with artistic inquiry, inviting viewers to ponder the fluidity of everyday actions frozen in time. Fun fact: Muybridge's series included over 780 plates with diverse poses, from athletes to domestic tasks, challenging Victorian norms around the nude body while advancing our understanding of anatomy and kinetics. A true bridge between art and science!

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...