Anna Atkins
Osmunda Regalis (Australia)

Public Domain

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Artist Anna Atkins British, 1799–1871

CultureBritish

Titles

Osmunda Regalis (Australia)

Date1853–1854

MediumCyanotype

DimensionsImage: 13 3/4 × 9 5/16 in. (34.9 × 23.7 cm)
Sheet: 13 3/4 × 9 5/16 in. (34.9 × 23.7 cm)
Mount: 18 7/8 × 14 3/4 in. (48 × 37.5 cm)

Credit LineMuseum purchase funded by Mrs. Clare A. Glassell

Object number94.189

Not on view

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Department

Photography

Object Type

PHOTOGRAPHS

DescriptionLike her friend William Henry Fox Talbot, the inventor of paper photography, Anna Atkins was a serious botanist who recognized the new medium’s potential to accurately record the form and structure of plants. Atkins used the cyanotype process, invented in 1842 by the scientist Sir John Herschel, which yielded prints in striking shades of Prussian blue. She placed her specimens directly on sensitized paper, covered them with glass, and set them in the sun; wherever the sunlight hit, the paper darkened, and wherever the plant blocked the rays of the sun, the paper remained white.
ProvenanceThe artist; Anne Dixon; [...]; [Sotheby's Belgravia, London, October 28, 1981]; [Robert Hershkowitz, England, United Kingdom]; [Fraenkel Gallery, San Francisco, 1986]; purchased by MFAH, 1994.
Exhibition History"The Artist’s Palette: Primary Colors on Paper," The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, 5 March - 15 April 2013.
Inscriptions, Signatures and Marks

Inscribed on image, lower center: Osmunda Regalis.
Inscribed in pencil, verso, bottom left: 2052
Inscribed in pencil, verso, bottom center: ANNA ATKINS [later inscription]

The cyanotype is not signed.

Cataloguing data may change with further research.

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