Arch of the Silversmiths
c. 1857
Medium
Albumen print, from "Photographs of Views of Rome" (c. 1857)
Dimensions
Image/paper: 36.5 × 26.4 cm (14 3/8 × 10 7/16 in.); Mount: 45.5 × 40.7 cm (17 15/16 × 16 1/16 in.)
Classification
photograph
Department
Photography and Media
Museum
Art Institute of Chicago
Accession Number
217196
Art Historical Context
Robert MacPherson’s “Arch of the Silversmiths,” created around 1857, offers a striking glimpse of ancient Rome through the lens of early photography. As part of his series “Photographs of Views of Rome,” this albumen print captures the ornate Arch of the Silversmiths, a second-century monument honoring Emperor Septimius Severus and his family. MacPherson, a Scottish physician-turned-photographer, produced the image using the albumen process, which coated paper with egg-white emulsion to achieve remarkable sharpness and rich tonal detail—qualities that made it the dominant photographic medium o...
About the Artist
Robert MacPherson · 1811–1872
Robert Macpherson (1811–1872) was a Scottish artist who began his career in medicine before pivoting to painting and ultimately pioneering photography in Rome. Born in the Tayside region near Edinburgh, he enrolled at the University of Edinburgh in 1831 to study medicine but left without graduating after four years. He then trained at the Royal Scottish Academy, where he exhibited portraits from 1...