Snapshots of the Past

[Bridalveil Fall, Yosemite National Park, Calif.] – Antique Wall Art

[Bridalveil Fall, Yosemite National Park, Calif.], [ca. 1860] — historic photograph
[Bridalveil Fall, Yosemite National Park, Calif.], [ca. 1860]. Historic photograph from the Yosemite collection.

(Originally scanned by the Library of Congress. Each image is professionally and digitally cleaned of artifacts such as color bars and extra borders prior to printing.)

Description

A window into the past: [Bridalveil Fall, Yosemite National Park, Calif.], preserved in this historic photograph. The original is held by the Library of Congress, so what you hang is a true record of its time.

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[Bridalveil Fall, Yosemite National Park, Calif.]

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Bridalveil Fall is the waterfall that greets travelers just after they enter Yosemite Valley, and this circa 1860 print captures it at a time when few Americans had seen the valley firsthand. Yosemite was granted to California by Congress in 1864 as a protected public trust, the first such grant of scenic land by the federal government, and early photographers like Carleton Watkins and Eadweard Muybridge helped make the valley's cliffs and falls famous back East. Pictures from this period were often stereographs or large albumen prints, and they carried the valley's landmarks into parlors and lecture halls. Look at how the photographer frames the falling water against the granite wall, a composition that was meant to convey both the scale of the land and the wonder of seeing it.

Created / published[ca. 1860]
Medium1 photographic print.
GenreLandscape photographs 1860.Photographic prints 1860.
SubjectsWaterfalls--California--1860. Mountains--California--1860. Yosemite National Park (Calif.)--1860.
SourceLibrary of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division
Original scan1,280 × 1,016 px · prints to 4 × 3 in at 300 dpi
ReferenceAMZ-SOTP-HPA-124054

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