River View, Sentinel, 3270 Feet
Medium
Albumen silver print from glass negative
Dimensions
Image: 20 1/4 × 16 7/16 in. (51.5 × 41.7 cm) Mount: 21 1/4 × 26 3/8 in. (54 × 67 cm)
Classification
Photographs
Department
Photographs
Museum
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
Credit
Gilman Collection, Purchase, The Horace W. Goldsmith Foundation Gift, through Joyce and Robert Menschel, 2005
Accession Number
2005.100.1266
Tags
Art Historical Context
Carleton E. Watkins, pioneering 19th-century photographer, captured the majestic American West with unparalleled clarity in *River View, Sentinel,3270 Feet* (1861). This albumen silver print depicts dramatic Yosemite landscape, likely featuring the Merced River winding through towering granite formations, with Sentinel Rock rising 3,270 feet as a sentinel-like guardian. Watkins' work exemplifies the era's fascination with sublime nature, transforming remote wilderness into accessible visual wonders for Eastern audiences. Printed from a large glass negative using the albumen process—then the g...
About the Artist
Carleton E. Watkins · 1829–1916
Carleton E. Watkins (1829–1916), one of America's pioneering landscape photographers, was born on November 11, 1829, in Oneonta, New York, the eldest of eight children to carpenter John Watkins and innkeeper Julia. Drawn by the Gold Rush, he arrived in San Francisco in 1851 at age 22 alongside childhood friend Collis Huntington, who later became a railroad tycoon. Initially working as a carpenter ...