Group at Head Quarters
1855
Medium
Salted paper print, plate 1 from the album "Photographs Taken in the Crimea," 1856
Dimensions
Image/paper: 19.2 × 16.5 cm (7 9/16 × 6 1/2 in.); Mount: 58.9 × 42.5 cm (23 1/4 × 16 3/4 in.)
Classification
salted paper print
Department
Photography and Media
Museum
Art Institute of Chicago
Accession Number
146108
Art Historical Context
**Group at Head Quarters (1855) by Roger captures a pivotal moment from the Crimean War (1853–1856), one of the first conflicts documented through photography. Fenton, a pioneering British photographer, arrived in the Crimea in early 1855 with a custom photographic van—dubbed his "Photographic Van"—to record the British military campaign against Russia. This salted paper print, plate 1 from his 1856 album *ographs Taken in the Crimea depicts a group of officers and staff at headquarters, likely near Balaclava or Sevastopol, offering a rare glimpse into the war's logistical heart amid harsh con...
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...