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Recto of print -
Recto of print with original mount -
Verso of original mount -
Photomicrograph showing print surface (scale bar is in millimeters) -
Photomicrograph showing paper fibers (scale bar is in micrometers)
Edward Steichen (American, born Luxembourg, 1879–1973)
Portrait of George Frederick Watts, 1901, printed 1903
Gum bichromate print; 20.3 x 16.2 cm (image); 22.1 x 16.7 cm (paper); 47.2 x 33 cm (last support)
Alfred Stieglitz Collection, 1949.824
© 2016 The Estate of Edward Steichen/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York
Alfred Stieglitz Collection, 1949.824
© 2016 The Estate of Edward Steichen/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York
Frederic Watts—his first name was misspelled by Edward Steichen in his inscription—was a renowned English portrait painter, and this is likely the first of a series of portraits that the young Steichen made during his first trip to Europe. He shot mostly artists, and he seems to have undertaken the series in no small part to meet people he had heroized while growing up. Other subjects include the sculptor Auguste Rodin and Maurice Maeterlinck, a Symbolist writer who was an inspiration to Pictorialist photographers such as Gertrude Käsebier.
Additional resources related to this object are to the right.