Plate Number 734. Two elephants walking
Medium
collotype
Dimensions
image: 15.88 × 46.36 cm (6 1/4 × 18 1/4 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
2014.79.660
Art Historical Context
Step into the pioneering world of motion photography with *Plate Number 734. Two Elephants Walking* by Eadweard Muybridge, created in 1887. This collotype print captures a sequence of majestic elephants in mid-stride, part of Muybridge's monumental *Animalotion* series—over780 plates documenting the movement of humans and animals through multiple exposures on a single frame. Muybridge, a British-American photographer, transformed visual art and science by using synchronized cameras and tripwires to "freeze" motion, debunking myths about how animals truly walked. The artwork's historical signi...
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...