{
"data": {
"id": 154278,
"accession_number": "1988.87",
"share_license_status": "CC0",
"tombstone": "Davoncastle Butte, Sierra Nevada, c. 1866\u20131870. Carleton E. Watkins (American, 1829\u20131916). Albumen print from wet collodion negative; image: 40.5 x 54.8 cm (15 15/16 x 21 9/16 in.); matted: 55.9 x 71.1 cm (22 x 28 in.). The Cleveland Museum of Art, John L. Severance Fund, 1988.87",
"current_location": null,
"title": "Davoncastle Butte, Sierra Nevada",
"creation_date": "c. 1866\u20131870",
"creation_date_earliest": 1861,
"creation_date_latest": 1875,
"artists_tags": [
"male"
],
"culture": [
"America"
],
"technique": "albumen print from wet collodion negative",
"support_materials": [],
"department": "Photography",
"collection": "Photography",
"type": "Photograph",
"measurements": "Image: 40.5 x 54.8 cm (15 15/16 x 21 9/16 in.); Matted: 55.9 x 71.1 cm (22 x 28 in.)",
"dimensions": {
"image": {
"height": 0.405,
"height_inch": 15,
"height_inch_fraction": 0.9375,
"width": 0.548,
"width_inch": 21,
"width_inch_fraction": 0.5625
},
"matted": {
"height": 0.559,
"height_inch": 22,
"height_inch_fraction": 0.0,
"width": 0.711,
"width_inch": 28,
"width_inch_fraction": 0.0
}
},
"state_of_the_work": null,
"edition_of_the_work": null,
"copyright": null,
"inscriptions": [
{
"inscription": "Written in pencil on verso: \"CEN1900\"; \"9 [circled]\"",
"inscription_translation": null,
"inscription_remark": null,
"sortorder": null
}
],
"exhibitions": {
"current": [
{
"id": 186948,
"title": "Pioneers of Landscape Photography from the Museum's Collection",
"description": "Pioneers of Landscape Photography from the Museum's Collection. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (August 12, 2000-January 3, 2001).",
"opening_date": "2000-08-12T00:00:00"
},
{
"id": 203110,
"title": "BIG: Photographs from the Collection",
"description": "BIG: Photographs from the Collection. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (June 12-October 9, 2016).",
"opening_date": "2016-06-04T04:00:00"
}
],
"legacy": []
},
"provenance": [],
"find_spot": null,
"related_works": [],
"former_accession_numbers": [],
"did_you_know": null,
"early_education_description": null,
"artlens_description": null,
"description": "From the medium\u2019s beginnings in the 1830s through the 1880s, most photographs were intimately scaled objects meant for the hand, the album, and the home. As the medium began being used to document landscapes and monuments in the 1850s, larger scale processes arose such as the glass-plate negative. The mammoth print truly seemed gargantuan in the 1860s. For much of the 20th century, the 8-x-10-inch gelatin silver print was the norm for photojournalism; these prints were destined for reproduction in books and magazines around the same scale.",
"external_resources": {
"wikidata": [
"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q79941138"
],
"internet_archive": [
"https://archive.org/details/clevelandart-1988.87-davoncastle-butte-si"
]
},
"citations": [
{
"citation": "Cleveland Museum of Art, Tom E Hinson. Catalogue of Photography. Cleveland, OH: Cleveland Museum of Art, 1996.",
"page_number": "Reproduced: P. 369",
"url": ""
}
],
"url": "https://clevelandart.org/art/1988.87",
"images": {
"annotation": null,
"web": {
"url": "https://openaccess-cdn.clevelandart.org/1988.87/1988.87_web.jpg",
"width": "1206",
"height": "893",
"filesize": "696825",
"filename": "1988.87_web.jpg"
},
"print": {
"url": "https://openaccess-cdn.clevelandart.org/1988.87/1988.87_print.jpg",
"width": "3400",
"height": "2517",
"filesize": "5193215",
"filename": "1988.87_print.jpg"
},
"full": {
"url": "https://openaccess-cdn.clevelandart.org/1988.87/1988.87_full.tif",
"width": "6054",
"height": "4482",
"filesize": "81432156",
"filename": "1988.87_full.tif"
}
},
"alternate_images": [],
"creditline": "John L. Severance Fund",
"image_credit": null,
"sketchfab_id": null,
"sketchfab_url": null,
"gallery_donor_text": null,
"athena_id": 154278,
"creators": [
{
"id": 1061,
"description": "Carleton E. Watkins (American, 1829\u20131916)",
"extent": null,
"qualifier": null,
"role": "artist",
"biography": "Carleton E. Watkins American, 1829-1916\r\n\r\nBorn in Oneonta, New York, Carleton Watkins traveled west to California in the early 1850s, shortly after the gold rush. He learned photography in 1854 from Robert Vance, one of the earliest and best of San Francisco's daguerreotypists. Vance's landscape photography, unusually skilled for the time, may have influenced Watkins's work.\r\n\tWatkins was among the first photographers in the Yosemite valley, shooting there in 1861, and his mammoth-plate landscape photographs of the area are believed to have contributed to Yosemite's early designation as a national park. His Yosemite Art Gallery opened in San Francisco in 1867, but unlike most photographers of the time, Watkins is not known to have done much portrait work. His subjects included topographical, scenic, survey, agricultural, and urban views of California and surrounding states, including Oregon, Arizona, Nevada, and Utah. Through his friendship with railroad magnate Collis Huntington, Watkins photographed along railway lines and was able to reach distant sites. Huntington later bought him the farm where he retired. Watkins's landscapes were well received; he was awarded an international medal at the Paris Exposition (1867) and a medal of progress at the Vienna International Exposition (1873).\r\n\tThe numerous commissions and the work produced for the public market by Watkins combine clarity of vision with technical expertise. His work set the standard for subsequent photographers of western views, such as William Henry Jackson, Timothy O'Sullivan, and John K. Hillers. Although his life was difficult and his business sense lacking, his photographic efforts were protracted and indefatigable. Watkins's negatives were destroyed in the San Francisco earthquake and fire of 1906. He died several years later blind and insane. T.W.F.",
"name_in_original_language": null,
"birth_year": "1829",
"death_year": "1916",
"use_in_caption": true,
"include_extent": false,
"weight": 1
}
],
"legal_status": "accessioned",
"accession_date": "1988-09-22T00:00:00",
"sortable_date": 1861,
"date_added_to_oa": null,
"date_text": "c. 1866\u20131870",
"collapse_artists": false,
"on_loan": false,
"recently_acquired": false,
"record_type": "object",
"conservation_statement": null,
"has_conservation_images": false,
"cover_accession_number": null,
"is_nazi_era_provenance": false,
"impression": null,
"alternate_titles": [],
"is_highlight": false,
"updated_at": "2026-05-29 07:58:42.534000"
}
}