Deck Scene of the Great Eastern
1857 · albumen print from wet collodion negative
Image: 28.4 x 36 cm (11 3/16 x 14 3/16 in.); Matted: 50.8 x 61 cm (20 x 24 in.)
Cleveland Museum of Art
WATTS INDEXThe canonical database of visual culture
Robert Howlett
1831
WA-00030913
PhotographyPhotography
Representation
None documented
1
Institutional Exhibitions
7
Works in Collection
11
Assets Indexed
2
Authority-backed Facts
0
Publications Referenced
90%
Profile Completeness
Cultural Positioning
Influence Graph
No influence edges encoded yet.
Authority Records (3)
Selected Institutional Exhibitions
View all exhibitions →No image
From the Gilman Collection: Photographs Preserved in Ink
Museum of Modern Art, New York
1984–1985
Field Verification (2 fields)
2 cross-verified · 0 single-source
- BiographyMoMA· 93%✓
- Birth yearMoMA· 93%✓
Source Registry (2)
- MoMA bulk 2026-05-04Tier 1 · Institutional92%
- Artsy (bulk)Tier 1 · Institutional85%
About
Why this artist matters now
Robert Howlett was a British photographer of the 1850s who pioneered early documentary and industrial photography. Working with the wet collodion process, he created stark, formally composed images of engineering subjects and public events, including the construction of Brunel's steamship, the Great Eastern. His work established photography as a tool for technical and social documentation during the medium's infancy. Howlett died at age 27, leaving a compact but influential body of work that shaped Victorian photographic practice.
Source: Moma Bulk 2026 05 04 · Trust score: 92% · Updated 1mo ago
Graph relationships
Taste overlap and adjacency
Movement
Photography
Medium
Photography
Related Artists
12 in graph
Institutional
Museum Collections
Canonical record
Artworks (7)
Artwork sources (4)
7 published of 8 catalogued · 5 with image
- The Met4 published1 img
- MoMA1 publishedof 2 catalogued2 img
- Cleveland Museum of Art1 published1 img
- Nga1 published1 img
Per-Artwork Provenance Chains (top 2)
5 entries · 2 sources
- 1857 · Met · 4 provWikidata·titleWikidata·mediumWikidata·year_createdWikidata·primary_image_url
- 1857 · Cleveland · 1 provUrl Pattern Extraction 2026-05-27·accession_number
Record
Images
Relationships
5Institutional
Representation & Collections
In collection
The Metropolitan Museum of Art
In collection
Cleveland Museum of Art
In collection
Museum of Modern Art
New York, US
In collection
National Gallery of Art
Record