Image of Gallery in South Kensington
Request to view at the Prints & Drawings Study Room, level F , Case X, Shelf 55, Box I

Rev. Dr Brewster

Photograph
1843-1847 (photographed)
Artist/Maker
Place of origin

One of fifty sepia-coloured photographs of people taken in Scotland and bound in album.


Object details

Categories
Object type
Titles
  • Rev. Dr Brewster (assigned by artist)
  • Dr James Brewster of Craig, Free Church Minister, Chartist (generic title)
Materials and techniques
Salt paper print from calotype negative
Brief description
Photograph by David Octavius Hill and Robert Adamson, 'Rev. Dr Brewster', Dr James Brewster of Craig, Free Church Minister, Chartist, salted paper print from calotype negative, 1843-47
Physical description
One of fifty sepia-coloured photographs of people taken in Scotland and bound in album.
Dimensions
  • Volume height: 23.5in
  • Volume width: 19in
  • Volume depth: 2.5in
Style
Marks and inscriptions
'Calotypes of D.O. Hill, R.S.A / and / Robert Adamson Edinburgh / MDCCCXLIII to MDCCCXLVIII' (Title page of Volume I)
Credit line
Given by Sir Theodore Martin, 1869
Historical context
The famous partnership and collaboration between the artist David Octavius Hill and the photographer Robert Adamson came into being originally in order to produce photographic portraits to assist Hill as a painter. The team produced a wide range of superb, valuable work and they were the first consistently and successfully employ calotype process in Great Britain.

1843 Hill was introduced to Adamson and they began to collaborate on the production of calotype portraits as reference images for the painting ‘The Signing of the Deed of Demission’ which represents 474 dignitaries. Essentially, Hill posed and arranged the individual sitters or groups while Adamson attended to the technical aspects of the exposure, processing, and printing.

Some of their most powerful images, however, were made in Scottish seashore villages and depict fishermen and women. They also photographed the architecture and monument of Scotland and made calotypes of their friends posed in medieval armour or costumes.
Subject depicted
Place depicted
Bibliographic reference
Stevenson, Sara. 'David Octavius Hill and Robert Adamson: Catalogue of their Calotypes Taken Between 1843 and 1847 in the Collection of the Scottish National Portrait Gallery', (Edinburgh: National Galleries of Scotland, 1981). ISBN 0903148374
Other number
pg. 44 (a) - National Galleries of Scotland, Hill & Adamson 1981 Catalogue, page and classification
Collection
Accession number
67337

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Record createdJuly 1, 2009
Record URL
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