Lot 157: ROBINSON (HENRY PEACH) "When the Day's Work is Done"

"When the Day's Work is Done", very large albumen print, mounted, framed and glazed, image 545 x 760mm., 1877

Henry Peach Robinson pioneered the use of combination printing to form a single image; thereby creating early photo-montage. "When Day's Work is Done" is a combination print constructed from six negatives. Robinson attached two negatives together with a sheet of glass and from three printings of each pair he created the final image. The complications of trying to produce a large range of various tones of illumination for the cottage means that a seam between negatives can be discerned where the light wall meets the dark shadows of the room.

Discussing this image, Henry Peach Robinson said: "One of the best models I ever employed was an old man of seventy-four. He was a crossing-sweeper. I should never have accomplished one of my best works if I had not seen him sitting at a table in my studio, waiting, till I could talk to him. I not only saw the old man there, but mentally, the old lady, and the interior of the cottage...The old man, by his attitude and expression, gave the germ of the idea; the old lady had to be found, and the cottage built, but they appeared to me then quite visibly and solidly."