Newhaven Fishwives, Jeanie Wilson and Annie Linton (1845): Art, History and Details

Newhaven Fishwives, Jeanie Wilson and Annie Linton (1845) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is David Octavius Hill (British, 1802–1870); Robert Adamson (British, 1821–1848).

The work and its context

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

Hill and Adamson’s four-year collaboration yielded around 3,000 photographs, including portraits of members of the middle and upper classes and, in what may be the first social documentary project, of the working class. Included in their survey of contemporary life were numerous portraits of the fishermen’s wives in the villages around Edinburgh. The women, garbed in distinctive striped skirts and aprons, cleaned their husbands’ catch, then carried it in wicker baskets to the city where they offered it for sale. They were reported to be hard bargainers. Hill and Adamson respectfully recorded not only their likenesses but also their names.

Object facts

• Title: Newhaven Fishwives, Jeanie Wilson and Annie Linton
• Date: 1845
• Creator attribution: David Octavius Hill (British, 1802–1870); Robert Adamson (British, 1821–1848)
• Culture: England, 19th century
• Type: Photograph
• Technique: salted paper print from calotype negative
• Dimensions: Image: 29.5 x 14.4 cm (11 5/8 x 5 11/16 in.); Matted: 45.7 x 35.6 cm (18 x 14 in.)
• Collection: PH - British 19th Century
• Department: Photography
• Accession number: 1987.18

Collection credit

Andrew R. and Martha Holden Jennings Fund

Further reading listed by the museum

• Turner, Evan H. "The Year in Review for 1987." The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 75, no. 2 (1988): 30-71.
• Cleveland Museum of Art, Tom E Hinson. Catalogue of Photography. Cleveland, OH: Cleveland Museum of Art, 1996.

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.