Layton Art Gallery, Milwaukee, Wisconsin
Henry Hamilton Bennett
American, born Canada. 1843–1908
c. 1890
A late-19th-century albumen silver print photograph by H. H. Bennett that deliberately documents the Layton Art Gallery’s classical sculptures and sober interior to present the gallery’s dignity and design.
The image strikes you with its calm, measured symmetry—two columns framing a sunlit room, a central statue on a dark pedestal beneath a skylight, and a warm sepia clarity that emphasizes spaciousness and stillness.
As an albumen print made from a glass‑plate negative, it shows how photography began to record and promote museum displays, helping shape public taste and the visual language of institutional authority in the late nineteenth century.
Medium
Albumen silver print from a glass-plate negative
Dimensions
17 3/16 × 21 3/4" (43.7 × 55.2 cm)
Classification
Department
Credit
Gift of H. H. Bennett Studios
Accession
488.1965
Palette
Exhibitions
