Dumbarton Presbytery
March 29, 1845
Medium
Salted paper print
Dimensions
Image/paper: 14.1 × 19.2 cm (5 9/16 × 7 9/16 in.); Hinged matte: 19.2 × 28.2 cm (7 9/16 × 11 1/8 in.)
Classification
salted paper print
Department
Photography and Media
Museum
Art Institute of Chicago
Accession Number
160195
Rights
Public Domain
About this artwork
Painter and illustrator David Octavius Hill engaged photographer Robert Adamson to help him fulfill a monumental commission to commemorate the so-called Disruption of 1843, in which the Free Church of Scotland was formed when a group of ministers seceded from the country’s established church. Hill wished to portray each of the nearly 450 participants at the Disruption Assembly, and found an efficient means of doing so by working from photographs, specifically the recently patented paper negative...
About the Artist
David Octavius Hill · 1802–1870
David Octavius Hill (1802–1870) was a Scottish painter, photographer, and arts administrator whose pioneering photography partnership with Robert Adamson from 1843 to 1847 transformed the medium into an art form. Born in Perth and trained in Edinburgh, Hill established himself as a landscape painter and became secretary of the Royal Scottish Academy, a position he held for nearly forty years. His ...