Vine Clad Arbor, No. 303 from the series "Boston, Mass., and Vicinity"
1873/81
Medium
Albumen print, stereo
Dimensions
Each image: 10.9 × 7.8 cm (4 5/16 × 3 1/8 in.); Card: 10.9 × 17.6 cm (4 5/16 × 6 15/16 in.)
Classification
photography
Department
Photography and Media
Museum
Art Institute of Chicago
Accession Number
199577
Art Historical Context
This stereoscopic albumen print, created by the Moulton brothers between 1873 and 1881, offers a charming glimpse of a vine-covered arbor in the Boston area. Part of their series “Boston, Mass., and Vicinity,” the image was designed to be viewed through a stereoscope, producing a three-dimensional effect that brought distant scenes vividly to life for nineteenth-century audiences. The twin photographs, each roughly four inches wide, were printed on a single card using the albumen process—a technique that employed egg-white emulsion to achieve the rich tonal detail typical of the era. Stereosc...