A Fete Day with Coffee Pickers, Santa Maria, Guatemala
1875, published 1877
Medium
Photography-Photoprint
Classification
Photography-Photoprint
Department
Smithsonian Collection
Museum
Smithsonian American Art Museum
Credit
Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Jeffrey A. Lichtenberg in honor of his parents Laura and Harold Lichtenberg
Accession Number
1999.97.37
Tags
Art Historical Context
In 1875, pioneering photographer Eadweardbridge ventured to Central America, capturing the vibrant daily life of Guatemalan coffee plantations. "A Fete Day with Pickers, Santa Maria Guatemala," published in 1877 as a photoprint, a joyous harvest festival amid thatched huts and lush landscapes. Groups of workers—likely indigenous pickers—gather in celebration, their figures animated against the rural backdrop, offering a rare glimpse into 19th-century agrarian culture during Guatemala's booming coffee export era. Muybridge, famed later for his groundbreaking motion studies, here excelled in do...
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...