Wharfe and Pool, Below the Strid
1854
Medium
Salted paper print
Dimensions
Image: 34.5 x 28.2 cm (13 9/16 x 11 1/8 in.) Mount: 56.8 x 44.9 cm (22 3/8 x 17 11/16 in.)
Classification
Photographs
Department
Photographs
Museum
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
Credit
Gilman Collection, Purchase, W. Bruce and Delaney H. Lundberg Gift, 2005
Accession Number
2005.100.8
Tags
Art Historical Context
**Wharfe and Pool, Below the Strid** (1854) is a serene salted paper print by Roger Fenton, a pioneering British best known for his groundbreaking Crimean War images. Captured along the River Wharfe Yorkshire's dramatic Strid gorge, the photograph depicts a tranquil pool with two men fishing amid lush, rocky landscapes. Fenton's composition masterfully balances the river's gentle flow with the rugged natural surroundings, inviting viewers into a peaceful English countryside scene. This work exemplifies early photography's salted paper process, a technique from the 1840s–60s that produced soft...
About the Artist
Roger Fenton · 1819–1819
Roger Fenton (1819–1869), born into a prosperous Lancashire merchant family as the son of banker and MP John Fenton, initially pursued a scholarly path, earning a first-class BA from the University of London in 1840 before studying law at University College London. He abandoned these pursuits for art, training as a painter under the history painter Charles Lucy in London by 1847—the two became clo...