Zygnema deciminum
ca. 1853
Medium
Cyanotype
Dimensions
Image: 25.3 x 20 cm (9 15/16 x 7 7/8 in.)
Classification
Photographs
Department
Photographs
Museum
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
Credit
Gilman Collection, Purchase, The Horace W. Goldsmith Foundation Gift, through Joyce and Robert Menschel, 2005
Accession Number
2005.100.557 (116)
Art Historical Context
**Zygnema decimin**, created around 1853 by pioneering photographer Anna Atkins, captures the delicate, filamentous structure of this green alga through a stunning cyanotype process. Atkins, a British botanist and artist, was among the earliest adopters of photography for scientific illustration. Her groundbreaking work *Photographs of British Al: Cyanotype Impressions (1843–1853), self-published using this technique, marked the world's first book illustrated entirely with photographs. The cyanotype medium—familiar today as "blueprints"—involves coating paper with light-sensitive iron salts, ...
About the Artist
Anna Atkins
Anna Atkins (née Children), born on March 16, 1799, in Tonbridge, Kent, England, grew up immersed in the world of science thanks to her father, John George Children, a prominent chemist, zoologist, and curator at the British Museum. After her mother Hester's death shortly after childbirth in 1800, Anna formed a close bond with her father, receiving an exceptional scientific education rare for wome...