The House over a Stump of a Big Tree
1865–66, printed ca. 1876
Medium
Albumen silver print from glass negative
Classification
Photographs
Department
Photographs
Museum
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
Credit
Gift of Carole and Irwin Lainoff, Ruth P. Lasser and Joseph R. Lasser, Mr. and Mrs. John T. Marvin, Martin E. and Joan Messinger, Richard L. Yett and Sheri and Paul Siegel, 1986
Accession Number
1986.1189.60
Tags
Art Historical Context
In Carleton E. Watkins's *The House over a Stump of a Tree* (1865–66, printed. 1876), a modest wooden house perches improbably atop the vast, freshly sawn stump of a colossal tree, likely a giant sequoia from California's logging frontiers. This albumen silver print from a glass negative captures the scene with Watkins's signature clarity, inviting viewers to marvel at nature's scale and human ingenuity—or audacity—in the post-Gold Rush era. kins, a pioneering 19th-century photographer, mastered the mammoth-plate process, hauling enormous cameras into remote landscapes to produce richly toned...
About the Artist
Carleton E. Watkins · 1829–1916
Carleton E. Watkins (1829–1916), one of America's pioneering landscape photographers, was born on November 11, 1829, in Oneonta, New York, the eldest of eight children to carpenter John Watkins and innkeeper Julia. Drawn by the Gold Rush, he arrived in San Francisco in 1851 at age 22 alongside childhood friend Collis Huntington, who later became a railroad tycoon. Initially working as a carpenter ...