Mrs. Rigby
ca. 1845
Hill and Adamson were among the earliest and most innovative portrait photographers of their time. Dependent on direct sunlight for the long exposures they needed, the artists fashioned an outdoor 'studio' that pretended to be a furnished Victorian interior. This ambiguous pictorial setting hangs onto the conventions of painted portraiture but the incongruous squinting of the sitters belongs to the moment.
Anne Palgrave Rigby (1777-1872) was the wife of a Norfolk doctor and mother of twelve children. Frequent visitors to Edinburgh, she and her two daughters often sat for Hill and Adamson.
Calotype on paper
8 1/4 x 6 in. (21 x 15.3 cm)
Richard E. Fuller Acquisition Fund
74.25