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Portrait of Sir William Allan

Photograph
ca. 1845 (photographed)
Artist/Maker
Place of origin

Portrait of Sir William Allan sitting on a chair resting his left elbow on a book.


Object details

Categories
Object type
TitlePortrait of Sir William Allan (assigned by artist)
Materials and techniques
Salt paper print from calotype negative
Brief description
Photograph by David Octavius Hill and Robert Adamson, 'Portrait of Sir William Allan', President of the Royal Scottish Academy of Fine Arts, salted paper print from calotype negative, ca. 1845
Physical description
Portrait of Sir William Allan sitting on a chair resting his left elbow on a book.
Dimensions
  • Height: 20.5cm
  • Width: 15.3cm
Style
Credit line
Transferred from the British Museum
Object history
This photograph was acquired by the British Museum in 1857 than transferred in 2000 as a plan to rationalise the collection and house objects at the V&A where greater expertise and national collections of particular media reside.
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
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. 38 (f) - National Galleries of Scotland, Hill & Adamson 1981 Catalogue, page and classification
Collection
Accession number
E.1230-2000

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Record createdApril 8, 2006
Record URL
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