The Scott Monument, Edinburgh
David Octavius Hill
British, 1802–1870
Robert Adamson
British, 1821–1848
c. 1843
A carbon print photograph of the Scott Monument in Edinburgh, made to record the Gothic memorial (then under construction) and to demonstrate photography’s ability to document architecture.
What first arrests you is the monument’s soaring, lace-like Gothic arches and pinnacles, their stone intricacy bisected by a towering lattice of scaffolding that rises above the surrounding modest houses against a pale, quiet sky.
An early 1840s photographic study that helped establish photography as a serious means of recording architecture and urban change, linking painters’ observational aims with a new, documentary visual technology.
Medium
Carbon print
Dimensions
15 × 11 7/8" (38.0 × 30.3 cm)
Classification
Department
Credit
Gift of Warner Communications, Inc.
Accession
842.1978
Palette
Exhibitions
