The Council of War on the Morning of the Taking of the Mamelon. Lord Raglan, Omar Pasha, Marshal Pélissier
1855
Medium
Albumen silver print from glass negative
Dimensions
Image: 7 1/2 × 6 1/2 in. (19 × 16.5 cm) Sheet: 7 1/2 × 6 1/2 in. (19 × 16.5 cm) Mount: 13 3/8 in. × 11 5/8 in. (33.9 × 29.5 cm)
Classification
Photographs
Department
Photographs
Museum
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
Credit
The Elisha Whittelsey Collection, The Elisha Whittelsey Fund, 1953
Accession Number
53.531.48
Tags
Art Historical Context
In 1855, pioneering British photographer Roger Fenton captured a pivotal moment during the Crimean War with his albumen silver printThe Council of War on Morning of the Taking of the Mamelon. Lord Raglan, Omar, Marshal Pélissier*. This intimate scene depicts three Allied commanders—British Lord Raglan, Ottoman Omar Pasha, and French Marshal Pélissier—strategizing amid the Siege of Sevastopol. Taken just before the successful Allied assault on the Mamelon Vert fortification on June 7, the image freezes a tense prelude to battle, highlighting the fragile multinational coalition fighting Russian ...
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...