Plate Number 749. Baboon climbing a pole

Art Historical Context

Eadweard Muybridge *Plate Number 749.oon Climbing a Pole* (1887) captures a pivotal moment in the of photography and scientific visualization. Part of Muybridge's monumental *Animal Locomotion*, this collotype print showcases a baboon mid-climb, frozen in sequential motion across the frame. Muybridge, a British-born innovator, revolutionized how we understand movement after his famous 1870s experiments proving that all four hooves of a galloping horse leave the ground—a feat that shattered artistic conventions and laid groundwork for motion pictures. Printed in collotype, a precise photomechanical process that allowed high-fidelity reproduction for researchers and artists, this 20.8 × 34.6 cm image was one of 781 plates produced from thousands of photographs taken with an array of up to 24 cameras triggered by animal-triggered wires. The series, commissioned by the University of Pennsylvania, blended art and science, influencing figures like Thomas Edison and Marcel Duchamp. Today, housed in the National Gallery of Art's Corcoran Collection, this work invites us to marvel at Muybridge's ingenuity: a baboon's dynamic ascent not just as spectacle, but as a window into the rhythm of life itself.

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...