The main show that I went to see at the Metropolitan Museum of Art is called: "Apollo's Muse: The Moon in the Age of Photography." It begins with early drawings of the Moon, and then moves on to early photographs of the moon. Then you come to this room which is stunning. It contains 71 huge framed lithographs of detailed photographs of the surface of the Moon. These photographs were done at the Observatoire de Paris by Moritz Loewy and Pierre Henri Puiseux and were published in 1896. Beginning in 1894, the astronomers spent every clear night photographing the moon through the Paris Observatory’s powerful refractor telescope. One the course of fourteen years, the partners produced more than six thousand glass negatives, choosing only the best for publication. From the negatives they created photogravures of unprecedented clarity and size, issued in twelve installments.
This is what one of the individual photographs looks like. One of these is stunning, and a room of 71 of them is almost beyond imagining!
Picturing you in your glory as an astronomer and a photographer. Amazing photo.
ReplyDeleteJoan
It is beyond amazing to see these stunning photographs which were published in 1896. Incredible! So glad you were able to capture some photos of this exhibit. Truly extraordinary. Some of the ones that caught my eye are the ones of partial phases of the moon because of the distinct black and white shadows. betsey
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