David Robert Jones's Blog (20)

This is another post to the blog concerning mistakes I have found in the titles and descriptions of Crimean War photographs in collections that I hope will come to the attention of curators.

While in the Crimea, Roger Fenton took a portrait of Frederick Augustus Maxse. In the picture, Commander Maxse, who at the time held the rank of commander in the…

In a post to this blog on 18 April 2020, the author described differences in the titles of three Roger Fenton images in Crimean War photographic collections at the Library of Congress (LoC) and the Royal Collection Trust (RTC). This is still unresolved because of ‘lockdowns’ caused by the coronavirus, but Micah Messenheimer at LoC informs me that he is…

Over the years searching for online digital copies of images taken by the James Robertson/Felice Beato photographic team in the Crimea in 1855-56, I have come to the conclusion that there must be many in private collections that are not available to people like me who would find them useful historically. I first became aware of this when I found three under…

I have recently been comparing collections holding Roger Fenton’s Crimean war images and have discovered that the titles of some portraits in the Library of Congress (LOC) in Washington are different to the same images in the Royal Collection Trust (RCT). The portrait entitled Colonel Goodlake at the LOC is entitled Lieutenant Colonel…

My last post to this blog concerned the two Valley of Inkerman photographs taken in 1856 by either James Robertson or Felice Beato, but more likely the latter. In this blog, the image entitled The Inkerman Ravine (see below) is discussed. Although Robertson’s signature is in the bottom right-hand corner, it also may have been the work…

The Royal Collection Trust's online description of a James Robertson/Felice Beato’s image entitled Valley of Inkerman (see below) reads:

Photograph of the Valley of Inkerman. In the valley in the foreground there is a road to the right and a river in the distance to the left. Behind are steep cliffs with a row of huts near the base. The…

The Redan Bastion was an integral part of the Russian defences of Sevastopol during the Crimean War. Many…

As a follow-on to my last post, members might be interested in seeing how the two different 'Valleys of the Shadow of Death', one taken by Roger Fenton in April 1855 and the other by James Robertson/Felice Beato later in the same year, look today (at least in 2012 when I last visited the Crimea!).

The first colour photograph below shows the site where…

On the Royal Collection Trust’s website concerning Robertson/Beato's Crimean War image entitled The Valley of the Shadow of Death (https://www.rct.uk/the-valley-of-the-shadow-of-death) (see right), there is the following description: -

Neither Robertson’s…

As a follow-on from yesterday’s post, blog readers may be interested in another James Robertson/Felice Beato…

One of James Robertson (see portrait right)/Felice Beato’s Crimean War images that has fascinated me is entitled 8 Gun Battery (see below). The description accompanying this photograph on the Royal Collection Trust (RTC) website states:

Photograph of an eight gun battery in front of Sevastopol. A wall created from earth and sandbags runs…

When Sevastopol was abandoned by the Russians on the night of 8-9 September 1855 during the Crimean War, the city became accessible to the Allies and artists/photographers were able to document the destruction wrought by numerous bombardments by British and French siege batteries. The first to enter Sevastopol were the British war artist William Simpson, the…

This is my third recent post that concerns Roger Fenton and his Crimean War connections. In the first, I showed…

Further to my last post to the blog, I would like to add that Roger Fenton sold the photographic van he took with him to the Crimea in 1855 for £35 just before he left Balaklava to return home. However, he commissioned another when he got back to England and in the summer of 1856 set off with it to photograph landscapes in Scotland.

This new van was…

Many of us will be familiar with Roger Fenton’s much reproduced photograph of his photographic van, which features Marcus Sparling, his chief assistant the Crimea, sitting on the box seat (see right). The left side of the van also appears in Fenton’s group portrait of cavalry personnel in the image entitled Cooking House,…

A photograph taken by James Robertson or his assistant Felice Beato entitled Head…

One of Roger Fenton’s (right) more popular images from the Crimean War is entitled Council of War held at Lord Raglan’s Head Quarters the Morning of the successful Attack on the Mamelon, Portraits of Lord Raglan, Maréchal Pélissier, and Omar Pacha (below). It was originally shown under this title at an exhibition of Fenton’s Crimean pictures held in…

Because of the facial expressions of some soldiers photographed by Roger Fenton in 1855 during the Crimean War, it was suggested by Richard Pare in the 2004 book All the Mighty World that they may have been suffering from what we now call shell-shock. Pare drew particular attention to Fenton’s portrait of Captain Lord Balgonie (see below). In the…

I noticed this write-up for the Royal Collection Trust's exhibition of Roger Fenton's work on the following website:…

Roger Fenton’s (shown right) letters home from the Crimea in May 1855 indicated that he was taking stereoscopic pictures of the ruins of Inkerman, the valley at Inkerman and the battlefield of Balaklava. However, these views have…