The Manger

Photography and Media

1899

Gertrude Käsebier
American, 1852–1934

Married and the mother of three children, Gertrude Käsebier took up photography in her forties. She achieved success quickly: in 1898–99 Käsebier exhibited at the elite Philadelphia Photographic Salon, befriended the influential dealer and photographer Alfred Stieglitz, joined the Camera Club of New York, and opened her own studio. This photograph of a Nativity scene bolstered her reputation as a photographer: Stieglitz published it in his early journal Camera Notes and again in the opening issue of Camera Work, in which Käsebier was the featured artist. With its soft focus, rich tonality, deep emotional overtones, and classical source material, The Manger epitomizes the pictorialist aesthetic cultivated by fine art photographers of the period. Käsebier was praised for her heartfelt images of mothers and children, in which she created the appearance of unposed authenticity even with staged subjects. In this tender depiction, the model holds nothing more than a bundle of blankets.

Status: Currently Off View
Department: Photography and Media

Artist: Gertrude Käsebier
Title: The Manger
Place: United States (Artist's nationality:)
Date Dates are not always precisely known, but the Art Institute strives to present this information as consistently and legibly as possible. Dates may be represented as a range that spans decades, centuries, dynasties, or periods and may include qualifiers such as c. (circa) or BCE.: Made 1899
Medium: Platinum print
Inscriptions: Unmarked recto; verso unchecked
Dimensions: Image/paper: 33.7 × 24.6 cm (13 5/16 × 9 11/16 in.)
Credit Line: Gift of Mina Turner
Reference Number: 1973.40
IIIF Manifest The International Image Interoperability Framework (IIIF) represents a set of open standards that enables rich access to digital media from libraries, archives, museums, and other cultural institutions around the world. Learn more.: https://api.artic.edu/api/v1/artworks/43908/manifest.json

Chicago, Illinois, Art Institute of Chicago, “Photographs from the Permanent Collection,” March 20–May 30, 1976. (Miles Barth)
Minneapolis, Minnesota, The Minneapolis Museum of Art, “Camera Work: Process and Image,” August 31-November 3, 1985; traveled to Seattle, Washington, Seattle Art Museum, November 22, 1985-February 2, 1986.
Chicago, Illinois, Art Institute of Chicago, Gallery 10 Permanent Collection Rotation, November 23, 2013–May 4, 2014.
Art Institute of Chicago, “Alfred Stieglitz and the 19th Century,” October 31, 2015-March 27, 2016.

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Date Dates are not always precisely known, but the Art Institute strives to present this information as consistently and legibly as possible. Dates may be represented as a range that spans decades, centuries, dynasties, or periods and may include qualifiers such as c. (circa) or BCE.

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IIIF Manifest The International Image Interoperability Framework (IIIF) represents a set of open standards that enables rich access to digital media from libraries, archives, museums, and other cultural institutions around the world. Learn more.

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IIIF Manifest The International Image Interoperability Framework (IIIF) represents a set of open standards that enables rich access to digital media from libraries, archives, museums, and other cultural institutions around the world.

Learn more.