Wilson A. Bentley
[Snowflakes]

Public Domain

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Artist Wilson A. Bentley(American, 1865–1931)American, 1865–1931

CultureAmerican

Titles

[Snowflakes]

Datec. 1900

MediumGelatin silver print

DimensionsImage: 3 1/8 × 5 1/8 in. (8 × 13 cm)
Sheet: 3 1/8 × 5 1/8 in. (8 × 13 cm)

Credit LineMuseum purchase funded by the S. I. and Susie Morris Photography Endowment

Object number2018.36

Not on view

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Department

Photography

Object Type

PHOTOGRAPHS

DescriptionAt 18, Wilson Bentley attached a camera to his mother’s microscope; within a year, in January 1885, he had successfully photographed the fleeting form of a single snowflake. “It was the greatest moment of my life,” he later wrote. Bentley’s investigation continued, and in 1931, shortly before his death, he published Snow Crystals, a book reproducing more than 2,400 of the 5,381 photomicrographs of snow and frost that “the snowflake man” had made in the 46 years since his first success.
Provenance[William L. Schaeffer, Photographic Works of Art, Chester, Connecticut]; purchased by MFAH, 2018.
Inscriptions, Signatures and Marks

Inscribed in pencil, verso, bottom right corner: W.A. Bentley // Jericho, Vt

Scattered numbers inscribed in pencil on verso, see image.

Cataloguing data may change with further research.

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