Cannon
1861–65
Medium
Albumen silver print from glass negative
Classification
Photographs
Department
Photographs
Museum
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
Credit
Harris Brisbane Dick Fund, 1933
Accession Number
33.65.189
Tags
Art Historical Context
This striking albumen silver print, titledCannon* and dated 1861–65, captures grim machinery of war during the American Civil War Attributed to pioneering photographer Mathew B. Brady his studio (listed as "Unknown" in some records), it hails from the Metropolitan Museum of Art's Photographs collection, acquired through the Harris Brisbane Dick Fund 1933. Brady, often called the "father of American photography," dispatched teams of photographers to document the conflict, producing some of the first visual records that brought the horrors of battle to the public eye. The image focuses on a can...
About the Artist
Mathew B. Brady|Unknown · 1823–1896
Mathew B. Brady (c. 1823–1896) was an American photographer who became the most famous photographer of the Civil War era and one of the founding figures of American photographic history. Born in Warren County, New York, to Irish immigrant parents, he learned the daguerreotype process from Samuel F.B. Morse and William Page and opened his first portrait studio in New York City in 1844. Brady quick...