Old Barley Mill, Brandywine River
Artist
Frederick De Bourg Richards
(American, 1822 - 1903)
Artist
John Betts
(American, active 1850s)
Date1854
MediumSalt print
DimensionsOverall: 5 5/8 x 7 1/4 inches (14.29 x 18.42 cm)
Credit LineGift of Hallmark Cards, Inc.
Object number2005.27.320
InscribedIn pencil on back of mount: "Old Barley Mill, Brandywine, June 1854."
On View
Not on viewCollections
DescriptionImage of a wood building with a stone foundation and a water mill. Two figures stand just outside the building beside a river with a dam.Gallery LabelFrederick De Bourg Richards was active for many years as both a photographer and landscape painter. He was one of the earliest Americans to take up paper photography. This picturesque work, made in June 1854, was one of Richards' earliest and most admired paper photographs. It depicts an old mill, built in 1728 on the Brandywine River near Wilmington, Delaware. It is interesting to consider that Americans of this period were already growing nostalgic for the simpler life of "olden times."
Frederick De Bourg Richards, "Old Mill on the Brandywine," Photographic and Fine Art Journal 7 (October 1854): 316, frontispiece; "The Old Barley Mill," Delaware Republican (January 26, 1865): 3.
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Frederick De Bourg Richards
1859
2005.27.332
