[Coaling Tower]
On loan to The Met
This work of art is currently on loan to the museum.Bluntly descriptive to the point of banality, this straightforward photograph shows a structure that is anything but. The rambling assemblage of chutes and ladders seems impossibly wonky, yet its design follows the calculating logic of commerce. Built as service stations for steam-powered trains, such towers housed belts and pulleys for heaving coal into lofty storage tanks until railcars rolled in to fill up with fuel. Ever larger trains required taller towers, so haphazard extensions shot up over time. The complex system is simply rendered in cyanotype—a popular process for documenting industry. Requiring no darkroom or silver salts, it offered working photographers a quick and crisp means of making images with minimal fuss.
Artwork Details
- Title: [Coaling Tower]
- Artist: Unknown (American)
- Date: ca. 1900
- Medium: Cyanotype
- Dimensions: Image: 6 9/16 × 8 1/16 in. (16.7 × 20.4 cm)
Sheet: 6 9/16 × 8 1/16 in. (16.7 × 20.4 cm)
Frame (approx): 15 x 15 in. - Classification: Photographs
- Credit Line: William L. Schaeffer Collection, Promised Gift of Jennifer and Philip Maritz, in celebration of the Museum's 150th Anniversary
- Object Number: L.2019.57.561
- Curatorial Department: Photographs