Maudslay Photographs

Brooklyn Museum

Maudslay, Alfred Percival, 1850-1931. Biologia Centrali-Americana

Maya art

Archaeology -- 19th century -- History

English archaeologist and photographer Alfred Percival Maudslay (1850–1931) first visited Central America in 1872. The "unexpected magnificence of the monuments" in the tropical forests captivated Maudslay, who then dedicated his life to documenting ruins found in Mexico and Central America. Maudslay played a crucial role in exploring and documenting ancient Mayan ruins found in several sites including Palenque, Copan, and Chichen Itza. Between 1881 and 1894, he conducted arduous explorations in remote areas, carrying his photographic equipment, casting plaster, and other supplies to make careful photographic records and plaster casts of architectural ruins. When he returned to England he published his findings in a multi-volume set entitled Biologia Centrali-Americana and made exhibition prints from his glass plate negatives that were shown at the World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago in 1893. It was in Chicago that Brooklyn Museum founding curators Stewart Culin and William Henry Goodyear saw the prints and arranged to purchase them, along with the Biologia for the Brooklyn Museum.

Brooklyn Museum

Brooklyn Museum

Maudslay, Alfred Percival, 1850-1931

Photographs

eng

Lantern Slide Collection

Brooklyn Museum

Visual education

Egyptology

Museums -- Educational aspects

In 1849, the Philadelphia daguerreotypists William and Frederick Langenheim introduced the lantern slide: a transparent image on glass that could be projected, in magnified form, onto a surface using a "magic lantern," or sciopticon. This new technology expanded the uses of photography, allowing photographic images to be viewed by a large audience. With lantern slides, Museum curators and educators could illustrate their lectures, letting audience members see detailed studies of objects and sites from around the world.

The Brooklyn Museum began collecting lantern slides in the late nineteenth century. The museum is sharing some of these images as part of The Commons on Flickr. As of Dec. 22, 2008 the available images were of ancient Egyptian art and architecture.

Brooklyn Museum

Brooklyn Museum

Lantern slides

eng

African Art Exhibition of 1923

Brooklyn Museum

Culin, Stewart, 1858-1929

Art, Congolese (Democratic Republic)

Art museums -- Exhibitions -- History

Ethnological museums and collections -- History

In 1903, Stewart Culin (1858–1929) became the founding curator of the Department of Ethnology at the Museum of the Brooklyn Institute of Arts and Sciences, now the Brooklyn Museum. He was among the first curators to recognize museum installation as an art form. He was also among the first to display ethnological collections as art objects, not as ethnographic specimens. This approach is evidenced in his exhibition Primitive Negro Art, Chiefly from the Belgian Congo. The exhibition opened in April 1923, and displayed African objects he had acquired in Europe from dealers.

These digital images of the African Art Exhibition held at the Brooklyn Museum in 1923 are from the Culin Archival Collection, the Museum Library, and the Digital Lab. This is a small selection of textual and visual documents; many more are available for viewing at the Brooklyn Museum Archives.

Brooklyn Museum

Brooklyn Museum

Culin, Stewart, 1858-1929

Photographs

Exhibition catalogs

Correspondence

Reports

Clippings (information artifacts)

eng

Goodyear Archival Collection

Brooklyn Museum

Goodyear, W. H. (William Henry), 1846-1923

Museum curators

Architecture -- History

Exposition universelle internationale de 1900 (Paris, France)

World's Columbian Exposition(1893 : Chicago, Ill.)

Church architecture

Architecture, Gothic

William Henry Goodyear (1846–1923), whose image collections are presented here, was the Brooklyn Museum's first curator of fine arts (1899–1923) and a renowned art and architectural historian. In addition to being a vital force in the early years of the Museum's fine arts department, Goodyear did extensive research in art history and architectural theory. Within this collection of correspondence, scrapbooks, notes, clippings, and expedition diaries, are images of medieval cathedrals, churches, and mosques taken between 1895 and 1914 that he used for his architectural research.

Brooklyn Museum

Brooklyn Museum

Goodyear, W. H. (William Henry), 1846-1923

Photographs

Finding aids

Site plans

eng