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Macpherson's Vatican Sculptures
91.R.3  
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Collection Details
 
Table of contents What's This?
  • 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.
    Request Materials: Request access to the physical materials described in this inventory through the catalog record  for this collection. Click here for the access policy  .
    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