U.S. Monitor Onondaga, James River
1861–65
Medium
Albumen silver print from glass negative
Classification
Photographs
Department
Photographs
Museum
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
Credit
Harris Brisbane Dick Fund, 1933
Accession Number
33.65.78
Tags
Art Historical Context
Behold the striking albumen silver *U.S. Monitor Onaga, James River*, between 1861 and 1865 by Mathew B. Brady or an unknown photographer from his studio. This photograph, now housed in the Metropolitan Museum Art thanks to the Harris Brisbane Dick of 1933, offers a rare wartime glimpse of the Union ironclad warship USS Onondaga patrolling strategic James River in Virginia. During the American Civil War, monitors like Onondaga revolutionized naval with their low-profile hull, thick armor plating, and innovative rotating gun turrets. Stationed on the James River, this vessel played a key role ...
About the Artist
Mathew B. Brady|Unknown · 1823–1896
Mathew B. Brady (c. 1823–1896) was an American photographer who became the most famous photographer of the Civil War era and one of the founding figures of American photographic history. Born in Warren County, New York, to Irish immigrant parents, he learned the daguerreotype process from Samuel F.B. Morse and William Page and opened his first portrait studio in New York City in 1844. Brady quick...