The Mamelon and Malakoff from front of Mortar Battery
Roger Fenton British
Not on view
Fenton’s extensive documentation of the Crimean War—the first use of photography for that purpose—was a commercial endeavor that did not include pictures of battle, the wounded, or the dead. His unprepossessing view of a vast rocky valley instead discloses, in the distance, a site of crucial strategic importance. Fort Malakoff, the general designation of Russian fortifications on two hills (Mamelon and Malakoff) is just perceptible at the horizon line. Malakoff’s capture by the French in September 1855, five months after Fenton made this photograph, ended the eleven-month siege of Sevastopol and was the final episode of the war.
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