DAVID OCTAVIUS HILL (1802-1870) & ROBERT ADAMSON (1821-1848) Lady Elizabeth Eastlake (back view). 1843–47. Salted paper print, the image measuring 8⅛x6 inches (20.6x15.2 cm.), the mount 14¼x10½ inches (36.2x26.7 cm.).
Provenance The Collection of Dr. James and Debra Pearl
The Hill and Adamson partnership lasted only four and a half years, but resulted in an enduringly influential and remarkable body of work. Self-consciously artistic as well as documentarian, their portraiture stands as one of the earliest and greatest achievements of the medium.
Lady Elizabeth Eastlake appeared in more than twenty calotypes by Hill & Adamson. One of these is believed to be the first photograph viewed by Prince Albert. She became an author and critic, and in 1857 she published a groundbreaking article, "Photography," in the Quarterly Review, in which she wrote: "It is now more than fifteen years ago that specimens of a new and mysterious art were first exhibited to our wondering gaze . . . we examined them with the keenest admiration, and felt that the spirit of Rembrandt had revived." In the same article, she singled out Hill and Adamson's work: "Photography made but slow way in England; and the first knowledge to many even of her existence came back to us from across the Border. It was in Edinburgh where the first earnest, professional practice of the art began, and the calotypes of Messrs. Hill and Adamson remain to this day the most picturesque specimens of the new discovery." (Getty) Lady Eastlake is considered today one of the most important women 19th-century art historians.
