View of Skiddaw
Photograph
24 August 1897 (photographed)
24 August 1897 (photographed)
Artist/Maker | |
Place of origin |
Rupert Potter (1832-1914), father of the children's writer and illustrator Beatrix Potter (1866-1943), took up photography in the 1860s when it was still a relatively new art form. An enthusiastic and skilled amateur, he was elected to the Photographic Society of London in 1869 and later contributed to photographic exhibitions. Rupert assisted the artist Sir John Everett Millais (1829-1896), a close friend, by photographing backgrounds for paintings and sitters for portraits. His favourite subject, however, was Beatrix herself and his prolific legacy of several hundred photographs forms a broad pictorial account of her life from infancy to marriage.
Rupert was also a skilled landscape photographer. During the Potter family's extended summer holidays to the countryside it was Beatrix's delight to accompany her father on photographic expeditions. He photographed in particular the countryside around Eastwood in Dunkeld, Wray Castle near Ambleside, Lingholm on the edge of Derwentwater and Tenby in Pembrokeshire. This photograph depicts a view of Skiddaw, a mountain north of the town of Keswick in Cumbria, visited by the Potter family whilst staying at Lingholm in August 1897.
Excited by the possibilities of the new art form, Beatrix too became an avid photographer, inheriting one of her father’s old cameras, 'a most inconveniently heavy article which he refuses to use, and which has been breaking my back since I took to that profession.' (Journal, Friday 19th April 1895). Beatrix went on to employ photography in the service of her own art and, like Millais, she photographed details, particularly in the Lake District landscapes, that she later incorporated in her imaginative book illustrations.
Rupert was also a skilled landscape photographer. During the Potter family's extended summer holidays to the countryside it was Beatrix's delight to accompany her father on photographic expeditions. He photographed in particular the countryside around Eastwood in Dunkeld, Wray Castle near Ambleside, Lingholm on the edge of Derwentwater and Tenby in Pembrokeshire. This photograph depicts a view of Skiddaw, a mountain north of the town of Keswick in Cumbria, visited by the Potter family whilst staying at Lingholm in August 1897.
Excited by the possibilities of the new art form, Beatrix too became an avid photographer, inheriting one of her father’s old cameras, 'a most inconveniently heavy article which he refuses to use, and which has been breaking my back since I took to that profession.' (Journal, Friday 19th April 1895). Beatrix went on to employ photography in the service of her own art and, like Millais, she photographed details, particularly in the Lake District landscapes, that she later incorporated in her imaginative book illustrations.
Object details
Categories | |
Object type | |
Title | View of Skiddaw (generic title) |
Materials and techniques | Albumen print on paper. |
Brief description | Photograph of a view of Skiddaw in the Lake District, 24 August 1897; albumen print by Rupert Potter. |
Physical description | Photograph of a view of a mountain, Skiddaw, with trees and farmland in the foreground. A fence runs across the picture in front of which are two horses, one bending down to eat grass. |
Dimensions |
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Production type | Unique |
Marks and inscriptions | 'Skiddaw / R Potter / [indecipherable] / Aug 24 1897' (Pencil inscription by Rupert Potter on verso.) |
Credit line | Given by Joan Duke. |
Object history | Photographed by Rupert Potter on 24 August 1897. Photograph given to the museum by Joan Duke in 1983. |
Subjects depicted | |
Place depicted | |
Summary | Rupert Potter (1832-1914), father of the children's writer and illustrator Beatrix Potter (1866-1943), took up photography in the 1860s when it was still a relatively new art form. An enthusiastic and skilled amateur, he was elected to the Photographic Society of London in 1869 and later contributed to photographic exhibitions. Rupert assisted the artist Sir John Everett Millais (1829-1896), a close friend, by photographing backgrounds for paintings and sitters for portraits. His favourite subject, however, was Beatrix herself and his prolific legacy of several hundred photographs forms a broad pictorial account of her life from infancy to marriage. Rupert was also a skilled landscape photographer. During the Potter family's extended summer holidays to the countryside it was Beatrix's delight to accompany her father on photographic expeditions. He photographed in particular the countryside around Eastwood in Dunkeld, Wray Castle near Ambleside, Lingholm on the edge of Derwentwater and Tenby in Pembrokeshire. This photograph depicts a view of Skiddaw, a mountain north of the town of Keswick in Cumbria, visited by the Potter family whilst staying at Lingholm in August 1897. Excited by the possibilities of the new art form, Beatrix too became an avid photographer, inheriting one of her father’s old cameras, 'a most inconveniently heavy article which he refuses to use, and which has been breaking my back since I took to that profession.' (Journal, Friday 19th April 1895). Beatrix went on to employ photography in the service of her own art and, like Millais, she photographed details, particularly in the Lake District landscapes, that she later incorporated in her imaginative book illustrations. |
Other number | AAD/1983/14/22 - V&A Archive number |
Collection | |
Accession number | AR.14:22-1983 |
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Record created | October 9, 2012 |
Record URL |
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