Elizabeth MacDowell Kenton
1880s
Medium
Albumen silver print
Classification
Photographs
Department
Photographs
Museum
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
Credit
David Hunter McAlpin Fund, 1943
Accession Number
43.87.11
Tags
Art Historical Context
In the late 1880s, American realist Thomas Eakins captured *Elizabeth MacDowell Kenton* in an intimate albumen silver print, a photograph now housed in the Metropolitan Museum of Art's Department of Photographs. Eakins, renowned for his paintings of everyday life and anatomical precision, turned to photography as both an artistic medium and a tool for his painterly studies. This portrait exemplifies his commitment to unposed, naturalistic depictions, revealing the subject's character through subtle lighting and direct gaze. The albumen silver print process, popular from the 1850s to 1890s, in...
About the Artist
Thomas Eakins · 1844–1916
Thomas Eakins (1844-1916) was an American painter, photographer, and educator who carried 19th-century American Realism to its highest achievement. Based in Philadelphia throughout his life, he created uncompromising portraits and genre scenes that depicted American life with a scientific precision and psychological depth unprecedented in his time. Born into an educated Philadelphia family, Eakin...