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From Bluff at Fountain City, Wisconsin, Looking Downstream
From Bluff at Fountain City, Wisconsin, Looking Downstream

From Bluff at Fountain City, Wisconsin, Looking Downstream

Artist Henry P. Bosse (American, born Prussia, 1844 - 1903)
Date1885
MediumCyanotype
DimensionsImage: 10 5/16 × 13 inches (26.19 × 33.02 cm)
Sheet: 14 7/16 × 17 3/16 inches (36.67 × 43.66 cm)
Credit LineGift of Hallmark Cards, Inc.
Object number2005.27.198
Signednone
InscribedOn sheet recto, bottom, in black type: "From bluff at Fountain City, Wis. looking down stream / 1885"; On sheet recto, top, in black type: "82a".
MarkingsOn sheet verso, bottom, in pencil: "Ex. Coll'n: Major A. Mackenzie / H. Bossee [sic] cyanotype "From bluff at Fountain City, Wis. looking downstream" 1885 from "Views on the Mississippi River" #82A"; Blindstamp on sheet recto, top: "...NONAY ALOE'S SATINO JOHAN..."
On View
On view
Gallery Location
  • L10
Collections
DescriptionOval image taken from a bluff looking downstream at a winding body of water (Mississippi River) that disappears at the horizon.Gallery Label

Poised atop bluffs overlooking a serene expanse of the Mississippi River, Henry Bosse utilized the cyanotype process—a blue-toned technique also used to make architectural blueprints— to create this scene. Hired as a draftsman and cartographer for the US Army Corps of Engineers, Bosse produced more than 350 negatives to survey the river and inform the construction of bridges, levees, and wharfs. Though his images served a practical purpose, Bosse’s sensitivity to atmospheric light and dramatic composition also conveys an artistic sensibility.

Published References
Mark Neuzil, Views on the Mississippi: The Photographs of Henry Peter Bosse (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2001); Charles Wehrenberg, Mississippi Blue: Henry P. Bosse and his Views on the Mississippi River Between Minneapolis and St. Louis, 1883-1891 (Santa Fe: Twin Palms, 2002).
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