David Octavius Hill
Professor Alexander Monro, 'Tertius', 1773–1859, Anatomist

Professor Alexander Monro, 'Tertius', 1773–1859, Anatomist

Public Domain

Professor Alexander Monro, 'Tertius', 1773–1859, Anatomist
ArtistScottish, 1821–1848
CultureScottish
Titles
  • Professor Alexander Monro, 'Tertius', 1773–1859, Anatomist
Date1843–1844
MediumSalted paper print from paper negative
DimensionsImage: 7 3/4 x 6 1/16 in. (19.7 x 15.4 cm)
Sheet: 7 3/4 × 6 1/16 in. (19.7 × 15.4 cm)
Mount: 10 7/8 x 8 11/16 in. (27.6 x 22 cm)
Credit LineMuseum purchase funded by The Brown Foundation, Inc., The Manfred Heiting Collection
Object number2004.509
Not on view

Explore Further

Department
Photography
Object Type
Description

In four and
a half years and nearly 3,000 images, the Scottish team of Hill and Adamson
pioneered the aesthetic terrain of photography, creating the earliest
substantial body of self-consciously artistic work in the new medium. Hill was
a locally prominent painter in Edinburgh with a keen sense of composition and
an affable manner that put his sitters at ease; Adamson, 20 years his junior,
brought to the partnership an extraordinary mastery of the negative-positive
photographic process invented just a few years earlier by the Englishman
William Henry Fox Talbot. Although Hill and Adamson’s portraits lacked the
extraordinary precision of contemporaneous daguerreotypes, they were much
admired for the warm tones and Rembrandtesque massing of light and shadow that
were characteristics of Talbot’s process.





Their portrait of Dr. Munro is one of some 200 the
team made as preparatory studies for a grand history painting that Hill planned
in commemoration of the establishment of the Free Church of Scotland in 1843.
Ultimately, these photographic studies proved to be a far more powerful record
than Hill’s large but lackluster painting.




Provenancefrom portfolio assembled by Hill for sale to Scottish National Gallery, Edinburgh; ex-collection Dietmar Siegert, Munich
Inscriptions, Signatures and Marks
Inscribed in pencil, verso, lower right corner: 13
Inscribed in ink, verso: 13
Inscribed in pencil, verso, bottom center of mount: Prof. Alexander Munro

Cataloguing data may change with further research.

If you have questions about this work of art or the MFAH Online Collection please contact us.

Professor Alexander Monro
David Octavius Hill
1843–1847, printed 1909
Photogravure
2004.492
Master Miller (Jimmy Miller, son of Professor James (or Hugh) Miller, Geologist)
David Octavius Hill
1843
Salted paper print from paper negative
2004.485
Bonaly Towers (Group includes John Henning, Mrs. Cockborn, Lord Cockborn, Mrs. Cleghorn and D.O. Hill)
David Octavius Hill
c. 1846
Salted paper print from paper negative
2004.498
Greyfriars' Churchyard, Mylne's Monument
David Octavius Hill
c. 1846
Salted paper print from paper negative
2004.497
Summer Afternoon, Master John Hope Finlay
David Octavius Hill
c. 1845
Salted paper print from paper negative
2004.517
Miss Matilda Rigby
David Octavius Hill
1843
Salted paper print from paper negative
2004.489
David Octavius Hill at the Gate of Rock House
David Octavius Hill
1843
Salted paper print from paper negative
2004.500
John Ban MacKenzie (1796–1864), Piper to the Marquis of Breadalbane and the Highland Society
David Octavius Hill
1844
Salted paper print from paper negative
2004.496
Miss Jane Binney (Later Mrs. James Webster)
David Octavius Hill
1843
Salted paper print from paper negative
2004.505
Mrs. Elizabeth Rigby (Later Lady Eastlake)
David Octavius Hill
1844–1845
Salted paper print from paper negative
2004.504
Finlay of Colosay (Deerstalker in the employ of Campbell of Islay)
David Octavius Hill
1843–1844
Salted paper print from paper negative
2004.499