Mer de Glace from Montanvert
Medium
Photogravure
Dimensions
6.9 x 6.7 cm. (2 3/4 x 2 5/8 in.)
Classification
Photographs|Prints
Department
Photographs
Museum
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
Credit
Robert O. Dougan Collection, Gift of Warner Communications Inc., 1981
Accession Number
1981.1229.21
Tags
Art Historical Context
William Henry Fox Talbot, a British inventor of photography, captured the majestic *Mer de Glace fromanvert* in 1852. This intimate photogravure depicts the dramatic "Sea of Ice" in the French Alps, viewed from theenvers vantage point—a site celebrated by Romantic travelers for its sublime, awe-inspiring power. At just 6.9 x 6.7 cm, the print distills the vast, snow-swept landscape into a pocket-sized marvel, evoking the 19th-century obsession with nature's grandeur amid the Industrial Revolution. Talbot's use of photogravure, a photomechanical intaglio process he helped pioneer, marked a bre...
About the Artist
William Henry Fox Talbot · 1800–1877
William Henry Fox Talbot (1800–1877), a British polymath whose ingenuity transformed visual representation, was born on 11 February 1800 at Melbury House, Dorset, the only child of William Davenport Talbot of Lacock Abbey and Lady Elisabeth Fox Strangways, daughter of the 2nd Earl of Ilchester. His father died shortly after his birth, leaving the family in financial straits until his formidable mo...