Oct 22, 2009 - Sale 2191

Sale 2191 - Lot 28

Price Realized: $ 81,000
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 35,000 - $ 45,000
MUYBRIDGE, EADWEARD (1830-1904)
Diverse group of 125 plates from the seminal "Animal Locomotion," including studies of men and women running, jumping and performing other physical tasks, animals (including equestrian studies) and children. Collotypes, sizes ranging from 12 1/2x9 to 17 3/4x6 1/4 to 12 1/4x9 1/4 inches (31.8x22.9 to 45.1x15.9 to 31.1x23.5 cm.), sheet size 19x24 inches (48.3x61 cm.), all but one with Muybridge's printed credit, title, date and plate number on the two-toned mount recto. 1887

Additional Details

In 1872, Eadweard Muybridge was commissioned by Leland Stanford, who was then governor of California, to settle the much-debated question of whether a horse's legs ever completely left the ground when galloping. Five years later, after Muybridge's work had been interrupted when he was the defendant in the murder of his wife's lover, he had definitively settled the question using a series of 24 parallel cameras with trip-wire triggers to photograph each stage of a horse's stride.


Stanford's commission became the impetus for a more ambitious artistic project in which Muybridge photographed both animal and human motion. Mechanically refined and substantially enlarged, Muybridge's resulting portfolio, entitled "Animal Locomotion," included 781 collotype plates and was published by the University of Pennsylvania, in 1887. Each series is a compelling photographic depiction of movement and a scientific masterpiece.


From the Collection of James B. Parks.