Plate Number 495. Miscellaneous phases of the toilet
Medium
collotype
Dimensions
image: 19.6 × 36 cm (7 11/16 × 14 3/16 in.) sheet: 47.63 × 60.33 cm (18 3/4 × 23 3/4 in.)
Classification
Photograph
Department
CPH
Museum
National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
Credit
Corcoran Collection (Museum Purchase, 1887)
Accession Number
2014.79.484
Art Historical Context
Eadweard Muybridge *Plate Number 495. phases of the toilet*1887) captures a sequence of everyday human motion, part of his groundbreaking *Animal Locomotion*. A pioneer in photography, Muybridge used banks of up to 24 cameras triggered by electro-mechanical devices to freeze rapid successive actions, proving that even a trotting horse has all four hooves off the ground at once. This collotype print depicts a nude female figure in various stages of grooming and dressing—Victorian-era "toilette"—revealing the grace and mechanics of routine movements with scientific precision. Printed via collot...
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...