[Self-Portrait]
February 1852
![[Self-Portrait] by Roger Fenton](https://images.artheonmuseum.org/met/ph/thumb/self-portrait-286386.webp)
Medium
Albumen silver print from glass negative
Dimensions
Image: 12.2 x 9 cm (4 13/16 x 3 9/16 in.)
Classification
Photographs
Department
Photographs
Museum
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
Credit
Gilman Collection, Purchase, Harriette and Noel Levine Gift, 2005
Accession Number
2005.100.285
Tags
Art Historical Context
Roger Fenton's *Self-Portrait* (February 1852) the pioneering photographer at the dawn of his career, just as he embraced the revolutionary medium of photography. Produced as an albumen silver print from a glass—a cutting-edge technique at the time—this intimate 12.2 x 9 cm image exemplifies the crisp detail and tonal richness that made albumen prints the gold standard for mid-19th-century photography. Fenton, a British barrister turned artist, was among the first to master this process, which involved coating glass plates with collodion and silver halides for superior clarity over earlier pap...
About the Artist
Roger Fenton · 1819–1819
Roger Fenton (1819–1869), born into a prosperous Lancashire merchant family as the son of banker and MP John Fenton, initially pursued a scholarly path, earning a first-class BA from the University of London in 1840 before studying law at University College London. He abandoned these pursuits for art, training as a painter under the history painter Charles Lucy in London by 1847—the two became clo...