John Ruskin; Portraits of many persons of note photographed by Frederick Hollyer

Physical description

Half-length portrait of Ruskin with a long beard and hands clasped in front of him, seated, looking at the viewer.

Place of Origin

Brantwood, England (photographed)

Date

1894 (photographed)

Artist/maker

Hollyer, Frederick, born 1837 - died 1933 (photographer)

Materials and Techniques

Platinum print

Dimensions

Height: 16.5 cm, Width: 12.5 cm

Object history note

Vol.I

Descriptive line

Portrait of John Ruskin (1819-1900) from 'Portraits of many persons of note' photographed by Frederick Hollyer, Vol. 1, platinum print. British, 1894.

Bibliographic References (Citation, Note/Abstract, NAL no)

Coe, Brian & Haworth-Booth, Mark. A Guide to Early Photographic Printing Processes. London: The Victoria and Albert Museum in association with Hurtwood Press, 1983.
The full text of the entry is as follows:

"Frederick Hollyer British 1837-1933
Portrait of John Ruskin 1894
Platinum print
165 X 124 mm Mus. no. 7602-1938
Given by Miss E. M. Hollyer

The platinum process invented by William Willis in 1873 was used to make prints of particularly fine quality. As in the salted paper process, platinum prints were made on paper impregnated, rather than coated, with light-sensitive chemicals - in this case compounds of iron rather than silver. A form of development after exposure produced finely divided platinum in the paper. The intense black colour of platinum formed in this way gave the shadows a very rich tone, while the lighter greys had an almost silvery tone. However, if the development process was carried out at high temperature, the form of the platinum deposited on the paper was changed and the image colour became warmer. The hot-process prints ranged in colour from a warm neutral to a pronounced sepia. The two prints of Ruskin made by Hollyer (Mus. nos. 7602, 7603- 1938) show the conventional and hot-process forms. In the 1890s platinum printing was the most popular process for exhibition prints for the Royal Photographic Society annual exhibition. Between 1893 and 1899 almost half of the exhibited prints were on platinum paper. The paper became prohibitively expensive when the cost of platinum rose drastically during the First World War.
Frederick Hollyer was a master craftsman in the field of copying paintings and drawings, taking the major medal in his class at the Exposition Universelle in 1889. His most extensive series illustrated the oeuvres of Burne-Jones, Watts and Rossetti. He also photographed the artists and their families. His portraiture offers a platinum-period parallel to the earlier achievement of Carjat (see his carbon print portrait of Baudelaire from 1862, Mus. no. 1190-1980) providing a pantheon of English painters, intellectuals, actresses and fellow photographers in the last quarter of the 19th century. In 1920 he assembled three chintz-covered albums of portraits for his daughter Eleanour. The first album opens with these portraits of Ruskin - the warm-toned print representing Ruskin as a genial grandee, the cooler print showing the reclusive culture-hero whose writings dominated the period of Pre-Raphaelitism and the Arts and Crafts Movement. The third album is concluded by a self-portrait taken in 1920. The cooler Ruskin portrait here is cropped from the squarer original which Hollyer sold in two sizes and in both platinum and carbon. He also printed in the Twenties on bromide paper but pointed out that it did not have 'the fine mezzotint quality' of platinum.

Materials

Photograph

Techniques

Platinum

Subjects depicted

Ruskin, John

Categories

Portraits; Photographs

Collection code

PDP