Second Ave Rock Island, Ill. during high water
1888
Medium
Cyanotype
Dimensions
Image: 10 3/8 × 13 1/16 in. (26.4 × 33.2 cm), oval Sheet: 14 7/16 × 17 3/16 in. (36.7 × 43.7 cm)
Classification
Photographs
Department
Photographs
Museum
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
Credit
Purchase, Acquisitions Fund and Mr. and Mrs. John A. Moran Gift, in memory of Louise Chisholm Moran, 2015
Accession Number
2015.37
Tags
Art Historical Context
Henry P. Bosse’s 1888 cyanotype captures Second Avenue in Rock Island, Illinois, submerged during a period of high water along the Mississippi River. The-framed scene transforms a flooded urban street into a quiet, reflective vista, where buildings and sidewalks appear to float upon the still surface. As both a civil engineer and photographer, Bosse documented the river’s seasonal floods and engineering interventions for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, creating one of the most compelling visual records of late-nineteenth-century river life. The choice of cyanotype—a process prized for its d...