
Read the visual description
The image depicts a street view from a slightly elevated perspective, focusing on a row of connected buildings. The structures have wooden facades, evenly spaced windows, and signs for businesses like "HARDWARE," "Ambrotype Rooms," and "S.A.& B. SMITH." A group of men stands in front of the hardware store, next to a horse-drawn wagon facing left. Additional shops along the street have signs for "HARNESS, SADDLES & TRUNKS" and "BONNET ROOM." The horizon blends into the buildings with slanting roofs and chimneys. The photograph's sepia tones enhance its historical ambiance, suggesting a late 19th or early 20th-century American town. The focus is on the architecture and figures, with no visible sky or landscape elements, capturing a moment of stillness on an unpaved street.
National Gallery of Art · Photograph
Ambrotype Rooms, Winchendon, Massachusetts
Kilburn S. Porter
- Date
- 1860s
- Medium
- albumen silver print (carte-de-visite)
- Dimensions
- image/sheet: 5.7 × 9.3 cm (2 1/4 × 3 11/16 in.) mount: 6.1 × 10.1 cm (2 3/8 × 4 in.)
- Classification
- Photograph
- Accession number
- 2021.122.11
- Credit line
- Robert B. Menschel Fund
- Time span
- 1851 to 1875
- Department
- CPH
Subjects and terms
- American
- Street
- albumen silver print
- exterior
- architecture
- Studio
- Massachusetts
- Store
- CDV
Provenance
(Thomas Harris, New York); NGA purchase, 2021.
Inscription
on verso, by unknown hand, top left in graphite: RM-SRQH030; center printed in black ink perpendicular: K.S. PORTER / Photographic / ARTIST. / WINCHENDON, / MASS.; along right edge: Negative preserved, from which Duplicates can be had at any time.
NGA object ID 223418. Collection metadata is reproduced under CC0. This work is included because its NGA published-image record is marked open access; visitors should recheck the source record before substantial reuse.