Shaft of Savage Mine, Virginia City, Nevada
Artist
Timothy H. O'Sullivan
(American, born Ireland, 1840 - 1882)
Date1868
MediumAlbumen print
DimensionsImage and sheet: 7 × 8 5/16 inches (17.78 × 21.11 cm)
Mount: 17 3/8 × 22 3/8 inches (44.13 × 56.83 cm)
Mount: 17 3/8 × 22 3/8 inches (44.13 × 56.83 cm)
Credit LineGift of Hallmark Cards, Inc.
Object number2005.27.3262
Signednone
InscribedOn image recto, lower left, in black: "85";
On mount recto, bottom, in black type with pencil: "No. 85 / U.S. / ENGINEER DEPARTMENT. / GEOLOGICAL EXPLORATION. / FORTIETH PARALLEL. / T. H. O'Sullivan, Photographer.".
MarkingsOn mount recto, lower right, in pencil: "Curtis Shaft / Virginia"
On View
Not on viewCollections
DescriptionImage of a group of men standing on a platform at the landing of a mine hoist system. The men are all dressed in heavy work clothes with hats. In the center and on the right, men are standing behind ore carts. Large timber beams fill the top of the frame and vertical guide rails run down the center of the image.Exhibition HistoryTimothy H. O’Sullivan: The King Survey Photographs. The Art Institute of Chicago, October 22, 2011 - January 15, 2012, The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, April 7 - September 2, 2012, Brigham Young University Museum of Art, Provo, UT, January 23 - May 26, 2014, no. 28.
At the Savage mine, O'Sullivan photographed the top of the Curtis shaft, showing workers with cars used to hoist ore and debris up from underground. A lithograph of this geometrically precise study was used as the frontispiece to the first of the survey's official reports, Mining Industry (1870).
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