Plate Number 439. Spreading a rug on the floor
Medium
collotype
Dimensions
image: 19.2 × 40.6 cm (7 9/16 × 16 in.) sheet: 48.4 × 61.2 cm (19 1/16 × 24 1/8 in.)
Classification
Photograph
Department
CPH
Museum
National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
Credit
Corcoran Collection (Museum Purchase, 1887)
Accession Number
2014.79.439
Art Historical Context
Eadweard Muybridge's *Plate Number 439.reading a Rug on the Floor* (1887) is a captivating entry from his groundbreaking *Animal Locomotion* series, revolutionized how we understand movement through photography. Commissioned by the University of, the series captured sequential images of humans and animals in motion using multiple cameras triggered in rapid succession. This collotype print, part of the Corcoran Collection at the National Gallery of Art depicts a nude figure dynamically spreading a rug, freezing everyday action into 12 precise frames across its expansive 19.2 × 40.6 cm image are...
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...