Zouaves
1855
Medium
Salted paper print, plate 32 from the album "Photographs Taken in the Crimea" (1856)
Dimensions
Image/paper: 18.4 × 16.8 cm (7 1/4 × 6 5/8 in.); Mount: 58.9 × 42.5 cm (23 1/4 × 16 3/4 in.)
Classification
salted paper print
Department
Photography and Media
Museum
Art Institute of Chicago
Accession Number
146136
Art Historical Context
Step into the gritty reality of the Crimean War *Zouaves* (1855), a salted paper print by pioneering photographer Roger Fenton. Captured during the 1853–1856 conflict between Britain, France, the Ottoman Empire, and Russia this image from plate 32 of Fenton's album *Phot Taken in the Crimea*1856) showcases the flamboyant French Zouave soldiers—elite infantry famed for their North African-inspired uniforms, agility, and valor. Fenton, hired by the British press, traveled to the front lines with a custom photographic van, making him one of the first war photographers to document the human side o...
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...