Mirror View of Sentinel Rock, Yosemite
ca. 1872, printed ca. 1876
Medium
Albumen silver print from glass negative
Dimensions
Image: 13 1/4 × 10 1/2 in. (33.7 × 26.6 cm) Sheet: 16 5/8 × 13 7/16 in. (42.2 × 34.2 cm)
Classification
Photographs
Department
Photographs
Museum
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
Credit
Gift of Carole and Irwin Lainoff, Ruth P. Lasser and Joseph R. Lasser, Mr. and Mrs. John T. Marvin, Martin E. and Joan Messinger, Richard L. Yett and Sheri and Paul Siegel, 1986
Accession Number
1986.1189.49
Tags
Art Historical Context
Step into the majestic world of Yosemite through Carleton E. Watkins' *Mirror View of Sentinel Rock Yosemite* (ca. 1872, printed ca. 6). This stunning albumen silver print captures dramatic granite monolith of Sentinel Rock mirrored flawlessly in the glassy Merced River, framed by towering mountains and lush landscapes. Watkins, a pioneering 19th-century photographer, the American West into visual poetry with his mammoth-plate camera, producing images of unparalleled clarity and scale. Taken during Watkins' expeditions to Yosemite Valley—a site President Lincoln protected as a federal grant i...
About the Artist
Carleton E. Watkins · 1829–1916
Carleton E. Watkins (1829–1916), one of America's pioneering landscape photographers, was born on November 11, 1829, in Oneonta, New York, the eldest of eight children to carpenter John Watkins and innkeeper Julia. Drawn by the Gold Rush, he arrived in San Francisco in 1851 at age 22 alongside childhood friend Collis Huntington, who later became a railroad tycoon. Initially working as a carpenter ...