Plate Number 338. Boxing, open hand
Medium
collotype
Dimensions
image: 22.9 × 32.4 cm (9 × 12 3/4 in.) sheet: 48.4 × 61.4 cm (19 1/16 × 24 3/16 in.)
Classification
Photograph
Department
CPH
Museum
National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
Credit
Corcoran Collection (Museum Purchase, 1887)
Accession Number
2014.79.363
Art Historical Context
Eadweard Muybridge *Plate Number 338., open hand* (1887) captures a pivotal moment in the history of photography and motion studies. Part of Muybridge's groundbreaking *Animal Locomotion*, this collotype print freezes a nude male figure mid-boxing stance, palm extended, showcasing the artist's obsession with dissecting human movement. Commissioned initially for scientific study, these sequential images revolutionized how we understand anatomy in action, bridging art, science, and early cinema. Printed via collotype—a precise photomechanical process that allowed for richly detailed reproductio...
About the Artist
Eadweard Muybridge · 1830–1904
Eadweard Muybridge (1830-1904) was an English-American photographer who revolutionized the understanding of motion through his pioneering chronophotographic studies. Born Edward James Muggeridge in Kingston upon Thames, England, he emigrated to America and became famous first for his dramatic landscape photographs of Yosemite Valley, then for his groundbreaking motion studies that proved horses li...