Hill & Adamson
1845 (taken) 1905 (print)
Lady Ruthven
[Camera Work, no. 11, 1905]

Photogravure, on tissue
8 x 5.9 ins
 
Archive Farms
Object No. 2016.531
 
Publication:
Camera Work XI, 1905
 
Heinrich Schwarz, David Octavius Hill, Der Meister Der Photographer, Insel-Verlag, Leipzig, 1931, pl 74
 
Anna Tellgren, Another Story, Photography from the Moderna Museet Collection, Steidl, 2001, fig 239
 
Robert Doty, Photography as a Fine Art, George Eastman House, Rochester, 1960, pg 12
 
David Octavius Hill & Robert Adamson, Museum Ludwig/Agfa Phot-Historama, Steidl, Gottingen, 2000, pg 91, Cat 35
 
Sara Stevenson, Facing The Light, Scottish National Portrait Gallery, Edinburgh, 2002, pg 97
 
David Bruce, Sun Pictures, The Hill-Adamson Calotypes, New York Graphic Society, Greenwich, CT, 1973, pg 209
 
Printed by Thomas Annan for private distribution. Lady Mary Ruthven (1789-1885), was the wife of Lord Ruthven and a friend of Sir Walter Scott. The vast majority of Hill and Adamson photographs show the ministers of the Free Church, notable residents of Edinburgh and distinguished visitors, or the hardy fisherfolk of Newhaven and Saint Andrews. On occasion, particularly in their portraits of the ministers-sober and all dressed alike-Hill and Adamson fell into formulaic patterns based on academic portrait painting. But there is no doubt that they were among the medium's most gifted portraitists, and one need only look at works such as this mysterious portrait of Lady Ruthven-reminiscent of Victorian fashion plates-to understand that Hill and Adamson possessed not only a profound human sensitivity but also a creative and sophisticated formal sensibility. (source: MET)
 
LL/90786