The romantic ruins of the early-thirteenth-century abbey of Rievaulx, much loved by artists, lie in a serene, steeply wooded valley in Yorkshire close to the family home of Fenton's wife, Grace. It is probably Grace who is posed kneeling, as if in prayer, at the site of the high altar.
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Title:Rievaulx Abbey, the High Altar
Artist:Roger Fenton (British, 1819–1869)
Date:1854
Medium:Albumen silver print from glass negative
Dimensions:Image: 29.5 x 36.5 cm (11 5/8 x 14 3/8 in.) Mount: 48 x 61.5 cm (18 7/8 x 24 3/16 in.)
Classification:Photographs
Credit Line:Gilman Collection, Purchase, William Talbott Hillman Foundation Gift, 2005
Accession Number:2005.100.275
Inscription: Printed label affixed to mount, recto C, below image: "Photography by R. Fenton"; printed label affixed to mount, recto BR: "70 Rivaulx Abbey, the High Altar"
[Robert Hershkowitz, Ltd., London, England]; Gilman Paper Company Collection, New York, October 5, 1985
Hayward Gallery. "Roger Fenton, Photographer of the 1850s," February 4, 1988–April 17, 1988.
City Museum and Art Gallery. "Roger Fenton, Photographer of the 1850s," April 23, 1988–May 29, 1988.
The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "The Howard Gilman Gallery: Inaugural Installation," October 16, 1997–February 1, 1998.
Washington. National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C. "All the Mighty World: The Photographs of Roger Fenton, 1852–1860," October 17, 2004–January 2, 2005.
Los Angeles. J. Paul Getty Museum. "All the Mighty World: The Photographs of Roger Fenton, 1852–1860," February 1–April 25, 2005.
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "All the Mighty World: The Photographs of Roger Fenton, 1852–1860," May 24–August 29, 2005.
London. Tate Britain. "All the Mighty World: The Photographs of Roger Fenton, 1852–1860," September 25, 2005–January 2, 2006.
The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Framing a Century: Master Photographers, 1840–1940," June 3–September 1, 2008.
Baldwin, Gordon, Malcolm Daniel, and Sarah Greenough. All the Mighty World: The Photographs of Roger Fenton, 1852–1860. New Haven: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2004. pl. 11.
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