Keeper's Cottage, Amwell Magna Fishery
1880s
Medium
Photogravure, plate V from the album "The Compleat Angler or the Contemplative Man's Recreation, Volume I" (1888)
Dimensions
Image: 12.5 × 19.8 cm (4 15/16 × 7 13/16 in.); Paper: 14.6 × 21.7 cm (5 3/4 × 8 9/16 in.); Album page: 24.7 × 31.9 cm (9 3/4 × 12 9/16 in.)
Classification
photogravure
Department
Photography and Media
Museum
Art Institute of Chicago
Accession Number
145603
Art Historical Context
Peter Henry Emerson's *Keeper's Cottage, Amwell Magna Fishery* (1880s) captures the serene rural charm of England's fishing heritage, serving as plate V in his 1888 album *The Compleat Angler or the Contemplative Man's Recreation, Volume I*. Inspired by Izaak Walton's 17th-century classic celebrating the contemplative joys of angling, Emerson—a pioneering British photographer—used his lens to evoke the quiet beauty of waterways and countryside life. Shot in the 1880s at Amwell Magna Fishery, the image exemplifies his advocacy for "naturalistic photography," where subjects appear spontaneous an...
About the Artist
Peter Henry Emerson · 1856–1936
Peter Henry Emerson (1856–1936) was born on May 13 at his family's sugar plantation, La Palma Estate, near Encrucijada, Cuba, to an American father, Henry Ezekiel Emerson, and British mother, Jane Harris Billing. A distant relative of Ralph Waldo Emerson and Samuel Morse, he spent his early childhood amid the island's landscapes before moving to Wilmington, Delaware, during the American Civil War ...