Getty Museum
Smelting Works, New Almaden
Creator
Carleton WatkinsAmerican Photographer · 1829–1916
All works by this person →At twenty, Carleton Watkins headed out to California to make his fortune. After working as a daguerreotype operator in San Jose, he established his own practice and soon made his first visit to the Yosemite Valley. There he made thirty mammoth plate and one hundred stereograph views that were among the first photographs of Yosemite seen in the East. Partly on the strength of Watkins's photographs,
More on Getty ULAN- Date
- 1863
- Medium
- Albumen silver print
- Culture
- American
- Department
- Photographs
- Institution
- Getty Museum
The discovery of the Comstock Lode, one of the largest silver deposits ever mined, in June 1859 set off a chain of events that changed the landscape of the West. As in the Gold Rush of 1849, prospectors and miners migrated to the area to seek their fortunes. The New Almaden mine in California was the subject of a lengthy lawsuit about the ownership of the mine and lands. The mammoth-plate and stereographic images Watkins made of the smelting works reveal his appreciation for the power of a diagonal viewpoint to expose the geometry of a factory setting.
The authoritative record is held by Getty Museum. LinkedCulture surfaces this object and its connections; it does not alter institutional metadata.
Get printable QR codesHide QR codes
Open QR codes for this object page and the museum record. They stay collapsed until needed.
Related across collections
Semantically similar works from Getty Museum and other institutions.