View of Amoy
ca. 1869
Medium
Albumen silver print from glass negative
Dimensions
Image: 7 1/2 × 10 1/16 in. (19 × 25.5 cm)
Classification
Photographs
Department
Photographs
Museum
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
Credit
Gilman Collection, Purchase, Robert Rosenkranz Gift, 2005
Accession Number
2005.100.494.86
Tags
Art Historical Context
**View of Amoy** (ca. 1869) by John Thomson captures the bustling harbor city of Amoy—now known as Xiamen, China—in a striking albumen silver print from a glass negative. Measuring 7½ × 10⅛ inches, this photograph showcases Thomson's mastery of early photography, a medium that revolutionized visual documentation in the mid-19th century.en prints, coated with egg whites and sensitized with silver salts, produced richly toned images with fine detail, ideal for preserving distant landscapes like this panoramic vista of buildings and waterfront. Thomson, a pioneering Scottish photographer and exp...
About the Artist
John Thomson · 1837–1921
John Thomson (1837–1921), a pioneering Scottish photographer, was born on 14 June 1837 in Edinburgh as the eighth of nine children to William Thomson, a tobacco spinner and trader, and Isabella Newlands.) After schooling in the early 1850s, he apprenticed with a local optical and scientific instrument manufacturer, where he mastered the principles of photography, completing his training around 185...