Landing Place, Ordnance Wharf, Balaklava

1855

Not on view

The Crimean War (1853-56) pitted European nations against an expansionist Russia and was the first large-scale conflict documented by photography. In 1855 a Manchester publisher commissioned Fenton to travel to the Crimea to record the theater of war in photographs to be sold by subscription. The images were intended to reassure the British at home, alarmed by reports of a harsh winter, squalid conditions, outbreaks of cholera, and inadequacies in leadership, that their troops were not suffering undue hardship. This view of Balaklava, the narrow harbor used as a landing place by the British, shows the chaotic disruption that modern warfare imposed on a formerly placid fishing village.

Artwork Details

Overview

Signatures, Inscriptions, and Markings

Provenance

Exhibition History

Title: Landing Place, Ordnance Wharf, Balaklava
Artist: Roger Fenton (British, 1819–1869)
Date: 1855
Medium: Salted paper print from glass negative
Dimensions: Image: 26 x 35.1 cm (10 1/4 x 13 13/16 in.)
Mount: 43.2 x 59.4 cm (17 x 23 3/8 in.)
Classification: Photographs
Credit Line: Gilman Collection, Purchase, Joseph M. Cohen Gift, 2005
Object Number: 2005.100.554
Curatorial Department: Photographs

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