Falls of the Llugwy, at Pont-y-Pair
1857
Medium
Albumen silver print from glass negative
Dimensions
35.8 x 42.9 cm (14 1/16 x 16 7/8 in.)
Classification
Photographs
Department
Photographs
Museum
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
Credit
Purchase, Louis V. Bell Fund and Mrs. Jackson Burke Gift, 1988
Accession Number
1988.1027
Tags
Art Historical Context
Behold the majestic *Falls of the Llwy, at Pont-y-Pair* (1857), a stunning albumen silver print by Fenton, one of Britain's pioneering photographers. Capturing the thundering cascade of the River Llugwy in Snowdonia, Wales, near the historic Pont-y-Pair bridge this 35.8 x 42.9 cm evokes the Romantic sublime—nature's raw power framed against rugged rocks and misty spray. Fenton's keen eye for dramatic landscapes showcases his versatility beyond his famed Crimean War images from just two years prior. As an early master of the wet-collodion process on glass negatives, Fenton produced this richly...
About the Artist
Roger Fenton · 1819–1819
Roger Fenton (1819–1869), born into a prosperous Lancashire merchant family as the son of banker and MP John Fenton, initially pursued a scholarly path, earning a first-class BA from the University of London in 1840 before studying law at University College London. He abandoned these pursuits for art, training as a painter under the history painter Charles Lucy in London by 1847—the two became clo...