Robert Macpherson

(b Forfarshire [now Tayside], 1811; d Rome, 17 Nov 1872). Scottish photographer and painter, active in Italy. He studied medicine at Edinburgh from 1831 to 1835 before deciding to become a painter. In 1840 he settled in Rome, where he belonged to the literary and artistic expatriate community. Among his acquaintances were the writers Robert and Elizabeth Browning and the art historian Anna Bronwell Jameson, whose niece, Gerardine Bate, he married in 1849. Macpherson made a living as a landscape painter and supplemented his income by buying and selling paintings. His most notable act of connoisseurship was the identification and acquisition of the Entombment of Michelangelo, now in the National Gallery, London.

See the Abbreviations for further details.

Macpherson, Robert ( c.1815-1872), Scottish photographer, active in Rome, where he established himself c. 1841 as a painter and art dealer. Introduced to the ‘new art’ of photography in 1851, he subsequently favoured Dr J. M. Taupenot's collodio-albumen process which, despite long exposures, best suited his practical and aesthetic needs.

Macpherson's self-designation as an artist-photographer is justified by his architectural and landscape studies. Through choice of viewpoint and manipulation of contrast, he exploited the interplay between light and shade to produce strong graphic images. Despite commercial constraints, his architectural photographs went beyond mere description to evoke the grandeur of imperial Rome. By 1858, with Tommaso Cuccioni (1813-64) and James Anderson (1813-77), Macpherson was one of Rome's leading photographers, and was the first to photograph the Vatican interior, recording many of its sculptures. He maintained strong links with the Photographic Society of Scotland and the Architectural Photographic Association. Unlike his successful rival Anderson, however, he failed to meet the growing demand for popular topographical views, and his business declined during the 1860s.

— Siobhan Davis

Bibliography

• Dewitz, B. v., Siegert, D., Schuller-Procopovici, K., (eds.), Italien sehen und sterben: Photographien der Zeit des Risorgimento (1845- 1870) (1994)

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