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No Cross, No Crown
Anna K. Weaver (active 1870s)
1874
- Medium
- albumen silver print of a photogram
- Classification
- Photographs
- Dimensions
- sheet and image: 10 3/8 x 8 1/2 in. (26.3 x 21.5 cm.)
- Museum
- Smithsonian Institution, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Graphic Arts
- Credit line
- Smithsonian American Art Museum, Museum purchase from the Charles Isaacs Collection made possible in part by the Luisita L. and Franz H. Denghausen Endowment
- Rights
- CC0 (Smithsonian Open Access), as the museum states it.
- Who can see it
- Tweens profiles and older: its subjects are known and suit older children. How works are placed
View at the Smithsonian Institution
About this work
No Cross, No Crown combines references to spiritual belief and botany in a photogram, an image made by arranging objects on lightsensitive paper. When Anna K. Weaver created her picture, many accomplished women botanists were struggling in vain to join the nation’s ranks of male professionals. Even the eminent Elizabeth Britton, author of hundreds of botanical articles and founder of two botanical societies, was awarded only an “honorary” curatorship at the New York Botanical Garden, which she also helped to found. In the context of its time, Weaver’s innovative image makes a poignant connection to the plight of those who were challenging the convention that females should devote their talents to cooking, embroidery, and other domestic arts.
