{"product_id":"anna-atkins-dictyota-dichotoma-1853-giclee-print","title":"Anna Atkins – Dictyota dichotoma, 1853 | Giclée Print","description":"\u003cp\u003eAnna Atkins made this image without a camera. She laid a piece of dried seaweed on paper coated with iron salts, put it in the sun, and rinsed it in water. What the plant covered stayed white. Everything else turned Prussian blue.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eShe did this several thousand times. Between 1843 and 1853 she produced \u003cem\u003ePhotographs of British Algae: Cyanotype Impressions\u003c\/em\u003e — the first book in history illustrated with photographs, published eight months before Talbot's \u003cem\u003ePencil of Nature\u003c\/em\u003e. Perhaps twenty-five copies were ever assembled, each plate printed by hand, each caption written by hand.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eShe was a botanist, not an artist, and the intention was documentary: a visual key to species that line engraving rendered badly. The result is something else. A brown-branched alga on white paper is a specimen. The same alga as a white silhouette on deep blue is a drawing made by the plant itself.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eWhat this is.\u003c\/strong\u003e A giclée reproduction of one of Atkins's cyanotypes, printed with pigment inks. It is not a cyanotype and is not sold as one — a real cyanotype is a unique object made in sunlight, and Atkins's are in museums.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eScale\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\n\u003cem\u003eOriginal: 25.3 × 20 cm \/ 10.0 × 7.9 in — Metropolitan Museum of Art\u003c\/em\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003e30 × 40 cm \/ 11.8 × 15.7 in\u003c\/strong\u003e — Original size, 1:1\u003cbr\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003e50 × 70 cm \/ 19.7 × 27.6 in\u003c\/strong\u003e — Enlarged, 2.1× original\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eAt original size the sheet carries the cyanotype exactly as Atkins made it. Enlarged, the seaweed reads across a room and the paper grain of 1853 becomes visible — which is a different picture, and a deliberate one.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eThe plate is reproduced whole, including Atkins's handwritten species name. Only the museum's mount around the sheet is trimmed away.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eProvenance\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\nAnna Atkins (1799–1871), \u003cem\u003eDictyota dichotoma\u003c\/em\u003e, from \u003cem\u003ePhotographs of British Algae: Cyanotype Impressions\u003c\/em\u003e, 1843–1853; cyanotype, image 25.3 × 20 cm.\u003cbr\u003e\nThe Metropolitan Museum of Art, Gilman Collection, Purchase, The Horace W. Goldsmith Foundation Gift, through Joyce and Robert Menschel, 2005, Acc. No. 2005.100.557 (18).\u003cbr\u003e\nThe work is in the public domain worldwide; the Museum publishes its digitisation under Open Access (CC0).\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eThe print\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\nGiclée on 200 gsm FSC-certified fine art paper, twelve pigment inks. White border, optical centre. The paper tone of the original is kept, not corrected. Unframed. Shipped rolled in a tube.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Museartis","offers":[{"title":"30 × 40 cm \/ 11.8 × 15.7 in — Original size, 1:1","offer_id":65752620237149,"sku":"MUS-004-3040","price":59.0,"currency_code":"CHF","in_stock":true},{"title":"50 × 70 cm \/ 19.7 × 27.6 in — Enlarged, 2.1× original","offer_id":65752620269917,"sku":"MUS-004-5070","price":89.0,"currency_code":"CHF","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1102\/7139\/8237\/files\/museartis-atkins-dictyota-dichotoma-plate.jpg?v=1788168675","url":"https:\/\/museartis.com\/products\/anna-atkins-dictyota-dichotoma-1853-giclee-print","provider":"Museartis","version":"1.0","type":"link"}