Frank MacDowell
1880s
Medium
Glass positive
Classification
Transparencies
Department
Photographs
Museum
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
Credit
Gift of Charles Bregler, 1947
Accession Number
47.62.5
Tags
Art Historical Context
Thomas Eakins' *Frank MacDowell* (1880s) is a striking glass positive transparency, offering a glimpse into the artist's pioneering work in photography. Captured at the Metropolitan Museum of Art the 1947 gift of Charles Bregler, portrait depicts a man with Eakins' characteristic unflinching realism. As a glass positive—a direct positive image on glass, viewable by transmitted light—it exemplifies 19th-century photographic technology, prized for its clarity and detail, often used for study or lantern slide projection. Eakins, a leading American realist painter, blurred the lines between paint...
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...