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| Erich Salomon Two Women in Conversation ca. 1920-30 gelatin silver print Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York |
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| Thomas Eakins Man Walking (stroboscopic photograph) ca. 1880-90 gelatin silver print Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York |
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| Adrien Majewski Effluvia from a Hand resting on a Photographic Plate 1898-99 gelatin silver print Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York |
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| Walery The Dolly Sisters ca. 1920-30 gelatin silver print Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York |
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| Oscar Gustav Rejlander Study for The Two Ways of Life ca. 1857 gelatin silver print Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York |
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| Georges Demeny Fencer 1906 gelatin silver print Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York |
"Demeny was the principal assistant to Étienne-Jules Marey, one of the nineteenth century's premier scientific investigators of the phenomenon of movement. In 1882 Demeny was instrumental in setting up Marey's "station physiologique" in the Bois de Boulogne – the studio where they carried out pioneering motion studies. Using a process that could make multiple exposures on a single photographic plate in rapid succession, Marey and Demeny could capture the visible traces of an entire motion in regular intervals and study that action at a level of detail not attainable by earlier photographic technologies. The picture above was made in 1906, after Marey's death, while Demeny was professor of physiology at the National School of Gymnastics and Fencing at Joinville, which he established."
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| Alphonse Mucha Study for Decorative Panel 1908 gelatin silver print Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York |
"The graphic art of Alphonse Mucha was the embodiment of the curvilinear aesthetic of Parisian Art Nouveau. His posters, calendars, theater programs and decorative panels featured sensuous yet ethereal maidens caught in swirls of unloosed tresses, flowing gowns and floral arabesques. An amateur photographer early in his career, Mucha used photographs of carefully posed models to supplement preliminary sketches for larger works. This example is a study for Tragedy, a panel Mucha created for the short-lived German Theater in New York."
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| Eugène Druet Vaslav Nijinsky in Danse siamoise from 'Les Orientales' by Michel Fokine 1910 gelatin silver print Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York |
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| Baron Adolf de Meyer Nude Models posing for a Painting Class ca. 1890-1900 gelatin silver print Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York |
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| Baron Adolf de Meyer Etienne de Beaumont ca. 1923 gelatin silver print Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York |
"An aristocrat and patron of the avant-garde, Count Etienne de Beaumont cuts a dashing figure here, posed in one of the grand salons of his hôtel in Paris's rue Masseran. The count hosted a series of legendary masquerade balls during the interwar period, attended by artists such as Jean Cocteau, Pablo Picasso and Man Ray. De Meyer described these parties, which he and his wife Olga often attended, as "fêtes of unsurpassed magnificence" in a 1923 article for Harper's Bazaar."
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| Anonymous photographer Nine Round Cyanotypes ca. 1890-92 gelatin silver prints Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York |
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| Henri van Heurck X-Ray of the Mummy of a Raptor 1896 gelatin silver print Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York |
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| Mario Castagneri Fascist Salute with superimposed Cross, Circle, and Spray of Flowers ca. 1930 gelatin silver print Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York |
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| Morton Schamberg 'God' by Baroness Elsa von Freytag-Loringhoven and Morton Schamberg 1917 gelatin silver print Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York |
"This photograph of a drain pipe attached to a miter box documents one of the most famous examples of American Dada. The sculpture God, a readymade in the spirit of Marcel Duchamp's upended urinal entitled Fountain, has traditionally been attributed to Schamberg, a talented photographer and painter who blended machine imagery and abstraction. Recent scholarship suggests, however, that this piece was primarily the creation of Baroness Elsa von Freytag-Loringhoven, who was without doubt the most bizarre of the New York Dadaists. Poet, shoplifter, junk collector, and Duchamp worshiper, the homeless Baroness was famous for strolling the streets of Greenwich Village with cancelled postage stuck to her face and a birdcage with a live canary dangling from her neck. The irreverent title may allude to Duchamp's observation, "The only works of art America has given are her plumbing and her bridges." Schamberg, who probably aided in the realization of the piece in addition to photographing it, died in the influenza epidemic the following year. It is believed that aside from his portrait work, only seven Schamberg photographs survive. Three depict this sculpture and four present views of New York."
– from curator's notes at the Metropolitan Museum