The Bowling Green
Medium
Photoetching, pl. IX from the album "Wild Life on a Tidal Water: The Adventures of a House-Boat and Her Crew" (1890)
Dimensions
Image: 9.1 × 17.2 cm (3 5/8 × 6 13/16 in.); Paper: 24.7 × 30 cm (9 3/4 × 11 13/16 in.)
Classification
photograph
Department
Photography and Media
Museum
Art Institute of Chicago
Accession Number
229741
Art Historical Context
**The Bowling Green**, a captivating photoetching by pioneering photographer Peter Henry Emerson, dates to 1887 and appears as plate IX in his 1890 album *Wild Life on a Tidal Water: The Adventures of a House-Boat and Her Crew*. Captured during Emerson's expeditions on England's Norfolk Broads, this intimate image (9.1 × 17.2 cm) evokes the serene yet dynamic interplay of human activity and tidal landscapes. Printed on larger paper (24.7 × 30 cm), it invites viewers into a world of reed-fringed waters and everyday adventures, reflecting the artist's houseboat voyages with friends. Emerson, a ...
About the Artist
Peter Henry Emerson · 1856–1936
Peter Henry Emerson (1856–1936) was born on May 13 at his family's sugar plantation, La Palma Estate, near Encrucijada, Cuba, to an American father, Henry Ezekiel Emerson, and British mother, Jane Harris Billing. A distant relative of Ralph Waldo Emerson and Samuel Morse, he spent his early childhood amid the island's landscapes before moving to Wilmington, Delaware, during the American Civil War ...