Public Laundry, Guatemala
Eadweard J. Muybridge
American, born England. 1830–1904
1875
An 1875 albumen silver print photograph in which Eadweard Muybridge documents a circular public laundry in Guatemala, using careful composition to record everyday life, architecture, and social activity.
You’re struck by the semicircular colonnade with its repeating arches and urn‑topped parapet, set against a wide dusty road with a grazing cow and wooden carts in the foreground and a small group of slightly blurred figures shaded in the bays.
The image exemplifies 19th‑century documentary travel photography that treated vernacular places and ordinary labor as worthy subjects, anticipating Muybridge’s later, more systematic studies of movement and visual observation.
Medium
Albumen silver print
Dimensions
5 3/8 × 9 3/8" (13.6 × 23.9 cm)
Classification
Department
Credit
Transferred from The Museum of Modern Art Library, New York
Accession
182.1964.53
Palette
Art Terms
Exhibitions
