General W.S. Hancock and Staff
June 1864
Medium
albumen print
Dimensions
image/sheet: 10.5 × 14.4 cm (4 1/8 × 5 11/16 in.) mount: 27.9 × 35.5 cm (11 × 14 in.)
Classification
Photograph
Department
CPH
Museum
National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
Credit
Gift of Funds from Diana and Mallory Walker
Accession Number
2025.44.8
Art Historical Context
Step into the gritty reality of the American Civil War with Mathew B. Brady's *General W.S. Hancock and Staff*, an albumen print captured in June 1864., a pioneering photographer whose studio documented the war's raw drama, immortalized Union Major General Winfield Scott Hancocknicknamed "Hancock the Superb" for his bravery at Gettysburg—and his officers. This intimate group portrait, measuring a modest 10.5 × 14.4 cm on its sheet, conveys the weight of leadership amid the conflict's brutal summer campaigns. Albumen prints like this one, made by coating paper with egg whites and silver salts,...
About the Artist
Mathew B. Brady · 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...