James Hall Nasmyth
The Moon: Considered As A Planet, A World, And A Satellite

ArtistBritish, 1840–1899
CultureBritish
Titles
  • The Moon: Considered As A Planet, A World, And A Satellite
Date1885
MediumBook with 25 woodburytypes, one lithograph
DimensionsOverall: 9 1/8 × 6 3/4 × 1 3/8 in. (23.2 × 17.1 × 3.5 cm)
Credit LineGift of Anne Wilkes Tucker
Object number2009.1172
Non exposé

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Department
Photography
DescriptionJames
Nasmyth, a Scottish engineer and amateur astronomer, and James Carpenter, an
astronomer with the Royal Observatory in Greenwich, published The Moon, Considered as a Planet, a World,
and a Satellite
. Because photography was not advanced enough to take
close-up photographs of the moon, Nasmyth built elaborate plaster models of his
observations of the moon and photographed those for the book. He photographed
the models in raking light to faithfully reproduce the effects of light and
shadow he had observed through his telescope.

ProvenanceAnne Wilkes Tucker, Houston; given to MFAH, 2009.
Exhibition History"The Moon: 'Houston, Tranquility Base Here. The Eagle Has Landed'," Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, September 27, 2009–January 10, 2010.

"Shooting the Moon: Photographs from the Museum's Collection 50 Years after Apollo 11," Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, July 20–September 2, 2019.
Inscriptions, Signatures and Marks
Printed on the title page:
THE MOON: // CONSIDERED AS // A PLANET, A WORLD, AND A SATELLITE. // By JAMES NASMYTH, C.E. // AND // JAMES CARPENTER, F.R.A.S. // LATE OF THE ROYAL OBSERVATORY, GREENWICH. // WITH TWENTY-SIX ILLUSTRATIVE PLATES OF LUNAR OBJECTS, PHENOMENA, // AND SCENERY: NUMEROUS WOODCUTS, &c. // LONDON: // JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET. // 1885

Printed on the following pages (see photocopies in accession file):

TO // HIS GRACE THE DUKE OF ARGYLL, // IN RECONGNITION OF HIS LONG CONTINUED INTEREST IN THE SUBJECT // OF WHICH IT TREATS, // THIS VOLUME // ... // THE AUTHORS.

LONDON: // BRADBURY, AGNEW, & CO., PRINTERS, WHITEFRIARS.

LIST OF PLATES. // ... // GASSENDI . . . . . Frontispiece.... " I. thru XXIV. (titles of each plate - see photocopy in accession file)

Cataloguing data may change with further research.

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Crater of Vesuvius
James Hall Nasmyth
1864
Woodburytype
90.523
Ichnographs from the Sandstone of Connecticut River
James Deane
1861
Book with 37 lithographs and 22 salted paper prints
2017.8
Manolo Millares
1970
Book with one lithograph, edition 9/50
91.2062.1-.3
Album
Louise Bourgeois
1994
Book
96.541
Cover
Roni Horn
1990
Book with one etching, special edition 103/150
96.553
La Cerimonia delle cose (The Ceremony of Things)
Enzo Cucchi
1985
Book with one etching, edition 5/100
96.545
Scenes and Sequences
Eric Fischl
1989
Book
96.549
Scenes and Sequences
Eric Fischl
1989
Book
96.550