The Tree Fern, Prize Photo
Samuel Bourne (English, 1834–1912)
1863
- Medium
- Albumen silver print
- Classification
- Photograph
- Dimensions
- 29.6 × 24.4 cm (11 11/16 × 9 5/8 in.)
- Culture
- England
- Museum
- Art Institute of Chicago, Photography and Media
- Credit line
- The Mary and Leigh Block Endowment Fund
- Rights
- Public domain (CC0), as the museum states it.
- Who can see it
- Kids profiles and older: it shows nature, places, still life or a children's book. How works are placed
View at the Art Institute of Chicago
About this work
Samuel Bourne learned photography in England, where he was active in the Nottingham Photographic Society, but it was in India that he made his photographic reputation. He arrived in Calcutta in early 1863, and published his adventures there as a series of articles in the British Journal of Photography. Bourne remained in India for seven years, producing—often under difficult conditions—over 2,500 architectural and landscape views of the Himalayan mountains and foothills, particularly around the town of Simla. Although a period ink inscription on the mount indicates that this image of a tree fern was a “prize photo,” the prize that Bourne won remains a mystery.
Description © Art Institute of Chicago, CC BY 4.0
