Before the Smithy's
1890, printed 1895/1896
Artist, American, 1864 - 1946
Artwork overview
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Medium
platinum print
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Credit Line
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Dimensions
sheet (trimmed to image): 14.5 × 19 cm (5 11/16 × 7 1/2 in.)
page size: 27.2 × 34.4 cm (10 11/16 × 13 9/16 in.) -
Accession
1949.3.60
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Stieglitz Estate Number
76D
Part of Stieglitz Key Set Online Edition
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Key Set Number
68
Alfred Stieglitz
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Artwork history & notes
Provenance
Georgia O'Keeffe; gift to NGA, 1949.
Associated Names
Bibliography
2002
Greenough, Sarah. Alfred Stieglitz: The Key Set: The Alfred Stieglitz Collection of Photographs. Washington, 2002: vol. 1, cat. 68.
Inscriptions
by Alfred Stieglitz, on interleaving tissue, upper right, in graphite: Before the Smithy's / 1890
Wikidata ID
Q64037637
Scholarly Remarks and Key Set Data
Remarks
Stieglitz submitted this image to The Amateur Photographer’s “Travelling Studentship Competition” as The Village Black. The journal notes: “all the negatives are un-retouched, and no cloud negatives are used. They have been taken with a Steinheil Aplanat. The plates used include Obernetter, Eosine, Schlenssn, Perulz (eosine), and Lumière. The developers have been pyro and soda and iron, and the whole of the prints have been produced in platinotype” (The Amateur Photographer 12 [18 July 1890], 41).
Other Collections
A print corresponding with this photograph can also be found in the following collection(s):
Hochschulbibliothek, Hochschule der Künst, Berlin
Wm. B. Becker Collection [lantern slide]
Lifetime Exhibitions
A print from the same negative—perhaps a photograph from the Gallery’s collection—appeared in the following exhibition(s) during Alfred Stieglitz’s lifetime:
1891, Hartford (no. 81, as Before the Smithy’s (The Tyrol))
1891, Vienna (no. 492, as Vor der Schmiede)
1891, New York, Fourth Annual Joint Exhibition (no. 318, as Before the Smithy’s)
1891, New York (no. 234, as Before the Smithy’s)
1892, New York, The Society of Amateur Photographers of New York (as Before the Smithy's, lantern slide)
1892, Boston (no. 322, as The Village Smithy)
1893, New York (no. 241, as The Smithy’s)
1893, Philadelphia (no. 520, as Before the Village Smithy)
Lifetime Publications
A reproduction of this work appeared in the following publication(s) during Alfred Stieglitz’s lifetime:
“Some Examples of the Work of Alfred Stieglitz, Amateur Photographer,” Frank Leslie’s Weekly 74 (3 March 1892): 76 (ill., The Village Smithy)