Robert MacPherson
Scottish, 1811–1872
Palace of the Caesars on the Palatine
INV-1001
Robert MacPherson
Scottish, 1811–18721860
Palace of the Caesars on the Palatine
Robert MacPherson Scottish, 1811–1872 →19th centuryalbumen silver printphotographic process
Date
1860
Medium
Albumen print
Dimensions
Image, oval: 30.7 × 39.9 cm (12 1/8 × 15 3/4 in.); Paper: 49.2 × 64.4 cm (19 3/8 × 25 3/8 in.)
Museum
Art Institute of Chicago
Location
Chicago, IL
Credit
Purchased with funds provided by Mrs. Leigh B. Block
Robert MacPherson moved to Rome in 1840, working as a landscape painter and art dealer until he began practicing photography in 1851. A new class of tourists—beyond the coterie of aristocrats who had initially popularized the Grand Tour—had begun traveling to Italy, and MacPherson quickly opened a photography studio to sell his high-quality prints of famous sculptures and architectural sites. For this view, he aimed his camera toward the southeast from the ruins of the Palace of the Caesars on Palatine Hill in Rome. Visible to the right are the Circus Maximus and the crenellated tower of the Santa Balbina church and monastery. In 1863 MacPherson wrote, “I remain a photographer to this day, without any feeling that by doing so I have . . . forfeited my claim to the title of artist.”
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