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Rudolf Eickemeyer
The Vesper Bell (1894)
[Die Kunst in der Photographie (Art Folio #5)]
1901
Photogravure, Chine-collé
18.7 x 14.5 cm
Photoseed
Photograph courtesy PhotoSeed.com
LL/20666
Rudolph Eickemeyer Jr. (New York)
The subject of this photograph is the grandmother of the photographer Rudolph Eickemeyer Jr. , who endured a month of sittings in a dairy barn on her farm outside of Yonkers, New York before Eickemeyer was satisfied with the final result. The photographs made at this sitting were the subject of a five-page essay - "How a Picture Was Made" in the third issue of Camera Notes (January, 1898-pages 63-66) . The essay is described briefly in the book by Mary Panzer In My Studio: Rudolf Eickemeyer, Jr. and the Art of the Camera 1885-1930 (Yonkers: The Hudson River Museum of Westchester Inc.: 1986).
From Page #36: Eickemeyer's article, "How a Picture Was Made," revealed the painstaking revisions he made to create a deceptively simple portrait of his grandmother, "Vesper Bell" This five page essay described the long complex interaction between photographer and subject mediated by the camera. Eickemeyer deliberately destroyed the notion that the process was automatic, unplanned, or mechanical. Narrative meaning was strengthened by changing the old woman's activity from simple devotion to a homely scene of chores interrupted for prayer. Added props and adjusted light improved the composition. Each modification required a new print and planning. The entire process took one month. "Vesper Bell" went on to win medals in London, Calcutta, and Vienna."
This photograph also reproduced as a photogravure in Camera Notes January, 1898. In addition, two different versions reproduced as halftones in this issue of Camera Notes accompanied Eickemeyer's essay.
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