Roger Fenton
Medium
salted paper print
Dimensions
image: 19 x 15.2 cm (7 1/2 x 6 in.) sheet: 24 x 20.8 cm (9 7/16 x 8 3/16 in.)
Classification
Photograph
Department
CPH
Museum
National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
Credit
Paul Mellon Fund
Accession Number
2005.52.3
Art Historical Context
This salted paper print, titled *Roger Fenton* and dated around 1855, captures the pioneering British photographer in a strikingly intimate portrait. Attributed to either Fenton himself or Dr. Hugh Welch Diamond—another early photography innovator—the image exemplifies the experimental spirit of mid-19th-century photography. Fenton, famed for his groundbreaking Crimean War photographs just a few years earlier, gazes directly at the viewer, his expression conveying quiet confidence amid the era's technological marvels. The salted paper process, a printing-out technique using paper sensitized w...