Portret van Elizabeth Barrett Browning naar een medaillon

About this artwork

inscription: ‘Elizabeth Barrett Browning./ From a Medaillon by Marshall Wood.’

Art Historical Context

This delicate albumen print captures the likeness of renowned Victorian poet Elizabeth Barrett Browning, based on a medallion sculpted by Marshall Wood. Created between 1851 and 1857 by British photographer Frederick Scott Archer, the small portrait (roughly 9 by 9 centimeters) reflects the era’s growing fascination with preserving the images of literary and cultural figures through new reproductive technologies. Archer, best known for inventing the wet collodion process that made sharp, detailed photographs on glass negatives possible, here translates a three-dimensional medallion into a two...