Great Dismal Swamp, Virginia (c. 1872–90): Art, History and Details

Great Dismal Swamp, Virginia (c. 1872–90) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is Israel Cook Russell (American, 1852–1906).

The work and its context

The museum's open-access catalogue describes the work:

Israel Cook Russell’s view of the Great Dismal Swamp, which straddles the border between Virginia and North Carolina, evokes both the locale’s abundance of timber and its sense of desolation. Russell, a celebrated geologist, took care to express the geological and biological forces that shaped landscapes but also to create images of artistic value.

Object facts

• Title: Great Dismal Swamp, Virginia
• Date: c. 1872–90
• Creator attribution: Israel Cook Russell (American, 1852–1906)
• Culture: America
• Type: Photograph
• Technique: albumen print
• Dimensions: Sheet: 15.1 x 19.8 cm (5 15/16 x 7 13/16 in.)
• Collection: PH - American 19th Century
• Department: Photography
• Accession number: 2024.132

A detail from the museum

From the 1700s through the Civil War, the Great Dismal Swamp’s timber was harvested by slave labor, yet the swamp also housed numerous people who had escaped slavery.

Collection credit

Gift of Judith K. McMillan

View the collection record

See the museum's photographs and full catalogue entry. Catalogue text is reproduced from the Cleveland Museum of Art's open-access data, with HTML formatting removed. This object and its supplied image are designated CC0.