COLLECTION NAME:
David Rumsey Historical Map Collection
Record
Author:
Muybridge, Eadweard (1830-1904)
Date:
1877
Short Title:
Panorama of San Francisco, From California - Street Hill. KEY.
Publisher:
Morse's Gallery
Publisher Location:
San Francisco
Type:
View
Type:
Index Map
Obj Height cm:
21
Obj Width cm:
30
Note:
Dimensions are sheet size.
City:
San Francisco (Calif.)
Full Title:
Panorama of San Francisco, From California - Street Hill. KEY.
List No:
16231.002
Series No:
2
Publication Author:
Muybridge, Eadweard (1830-1904)
Pub Date:
1877
Pub Title:
Panorama of San Francisco, From California -St. Hill.
Pub Reference:
David Harris, Eadweard Muybridge and the Photographic Panorama of San Francisco, 1850-1880, catalogue items 31 & 32, pp.37-53. Rebecca Solnit, River of Shadows: Eadweard Muybridge and the Technological Wild West. Paul A. Falconer, "Muybridge's Window to the Past: A Wet-Plate View of San Francisco" in CALIFORNIA HISTORY (Summer 1978), pp.130-57. HOWES M926, "b."
Pub Note:
11 photographs are joined with linen tape to form continuous panorama, folded accordion style. First leaf of plates is mounted inside front cover. One of the landmarks of 19th-century American photography, and an iconic panoramic image of San Francisco, accompanied by the extraordinarily rare Key to Muybridge's work. This remarkable panorama shows the dramatic growth of San Francisco nearly thirty years after the onset of the Gold Rush. In the 1870s, San Francisco audiences were hungry for panoramic displays, and the rest of the country was intrigued by San Francisco, the largest city in the West. Muybridge satisfied all appetites by providing a 360° view of the city, creating what Rebecca Solnit calls "an impossible sight, a vision of the city in all directions, a transformation of a circular space into a linear photograph." David Harris calls Muybridge's San Francisco panorama "one of the supreme conceptual and technical achievements in the history of architectural photography." Eadweard Muybridge took the photographs that make up this panorama from a vantage point on the central tower of the unfinished Nob Hill residence of railroad baron Mark Hopkins, then the highest point in the developed portion of the city. The work was done in June or July, 1877 and took some five hours to complete, based on the shifting shadows seen in the image. Muybridge began in the late morning with a view toward the southwest (the tenth plate in the panorama) and proceeded in a clockwise direction, moving his camera away from the sun from one image to the next. Muybridge's view is from some 380 feet above sea. Albumen photographic panorama mounted on eleven panels, the entire panorama measuring a total of 7½ x 87¼ inches. Caption title, photographic credit, and publisher's imprint printed on center panel. [with:] PANORAMA OF SAN FRANCISCO FROM CALIFORNIA-STREET HILL. KEY. San Francisco: Morse's Gallery, 1877. Albumen photograph, 7¾ x 10½ inches, mounted on slightly larger printed card reading "Muybridge, Photo., Morse's Gallery. San Francisco" at the foot. PANORAMA: Each panel backed by cloth and tipped into original burgundy cloth portfolio, front board stamped in gilt. (William Reese Co, 2025)
Pub List No:
16231.000
Pub Type:
View
Pub Height cm:
32
Pub Width cm:
22
Image No:
16231002.jp2
Authors:
Muybridge, Eadweard (1830-1904)
