The Village by the River
1890-1891, printed 1893
Medium
photogravure
Dimensions
image: 14 × 22.5 cm (5 1/2 × 8 7/8 in.)
Classification
Photograph
Department
CPH
Museum
National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
Credit
Robert B. Menschel and the Vital Projects Fund
Accession Number
2013.55.1.9
Art Historical Context
Peter Henry Emerson’s “The Village by the River” captures a tranquil rural scene through the refined lens of late-nineteenth-century photography. Created between 1890 and 1891 and printed as a photogravure in 1893, the small-scale work—measuring just 14 by 22.5 centimeters—demonstrates how the medium could translate delicate atmospheric tones and subtle textures into a permanent, ink-based print. Photogravure’s rich, continuous gradations allowed photographers to achieve effects once associated only with etching or engraving, helping to elevate photography’s status within the fine arts. Emers...
About the Artist
Peter Henry Emerson · 1856–1936
Peter Henry Emerson (1856–1936) was born on May 13 at his family's sugar plantation, La Palma Estate, near Encrucijada, Cuba, to an American father, Henry Ezekiel Emerson, and British mother, Jane Harris Billing. A distant relative of Ralph Waldo Emerson and Samuel Morse, he spent his early childhood amid the island's landscapes before moving to Wilmington, Delaware, during the American Civil War ...