Descriptive Summary
Biographical / Historical
Administrative Information
Scope and Content of Collection
Indexing Terms
Descriptive Summary
Title: Macpherson's Vatican Sculptures
Date (inclusive): 1863?
Number: 91.R.3
Creator/Collector:
Macpherson, Robert, 1815 or
1816-1872
Physical Description:
1 Linear Feet
(1 album containing 130 photographs)
Repository:
The Getty Research Institute
Special Collections
1200 Getty Center Drive, Suite 1100
Los Angeles 90049-1688
reference@getty.edu
URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10020/askref
(310) 440-7390
Abstract: An album of 130 albumen photgraphs by
Robert Macpherson of Greek and Roman sculpture held in the Vatican Museum, along with
installation views of six of the halls housing the sculpture. The album documents the museum
as it was arranged in the 1860s.
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Language: Collection material is in English
Biographical / Historical
Robert MacPherson was a Scottish painter turned photographer and some-time art dealer,
active in Rome from 1851 until his death. While he produced views of Rome's classical ruins,
churches, fountains, piazzas and villas, and of the Roman Campagna and surrounding towns,
McPherson's main interest was in photographing sculpture. He was the first to photograph the
interior of the Vatican palace, and he had ambitions to photograph not only all of the
Vatican's significant sculptures, but all of the major sculpture collections in Rome.
In 1863 MacPherson published his
Vatican Sculptures, Selected and
Arranged in the Order in Which They Are Found in the Galleries
(London: Chapman
& Hall) containing 125 wood engravings based on his photographs by his wife, Geralidine.
At the same time he issued an album of 126 photographs of Vatican sculptures.
Administrative Information
Access
Open for use by qualified researchers.
Publication Rights
Preferred Citation
Mcpherson's Vatican Sculptures, 1863, The Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles, Accession
no. 91.r.3.
http://hdl.handle.net/10020/cifa91r3
Immediate Source of Acquisition
Acquired in 1989?
Processing Information
Beth Ann Guynn wrote the finding aid in 2020.
Digitized Material
The collection was digitized in 2020 and the images are available online:
http://hdl.handle.net/10020/91r3
Scope and Content of Collection
The album contains 126 albumen photographs by Robert Macpherson of Greek and Roman
sculpture held in the Vatican Museum ( Museo Pio-Clementino). The album is organized by the
halls in which the sculptures are displayed, and installation views of six of the halls
(Braccio Nuovo, Chiaramonte, Hall of the Animals, Hall of Statues, Hall of the Greek Cross,
and the Hall of the Candelabra) precede the images of their respective contents. The album
documents the museum as it was arranged in the 1860s.
The album is velum-bound with a gilt-stamped red leather title plate on its spine which
also has banding and the photographer's name directly gilt-stamped onto it. An inventory
number (?) is inked above the title plate. The back paste-down bears a shelf label:
Accession No. 3744; Date 1901. The album was assembled and bound for the Museum of Fine
Arts, Boston.
A list entitled "Macpherson's Vatican Sculptures, Printed and Published in London by Emily
Faithful," serves as the title page to the album. Numbers pencilled on the mounts below the
images correspond to this inventory, and the titles of the individual photgraphs are taken
directly from this list. Nine mounts bear the blind stamp: R. McPherson / Rome (in an oval
border with photograph number pencilled in the center of the oval).
The versos of the mounts bear the Boston Museum of Fine Arts wet stamp in their centers: M.
F. A. (enclosed in an oval), and printed M. F. A. labels, with the object number inked in,
are adhered to the upper left corners, occasionally with annotations pencilled next to
them.
Arrangement
Arranged in a single series:
Series I. Macpherson's Vatican
Sculptures.
Indexing Terms
Subjects - Corporate Bodies
Museo Pio-Clementino (Vatican
City)
Subjects - Topics
Classical antiquities
Sculpture, Greek
Sculpture, Roman
Art museums -- Vatican City
Sculpture, Ancient -- Vatican City
Genres and Forms of Material
Photographs, Original.
Albumen prints -- Italy -- 19th century
Contributors
Macpherson, Robert, 1815 or
1816-1872