David Maitland Makgill Crichton, Rankeillour 1843 - 1847

"David Maitland Makgill Crichton, Rankeillour" is a calotype portrait by the Scottish photographers Hill and Adamson, taken between 1843 and 1847. The image, currently housed at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City, showcases Crichton in a seated pose, holding a book. The photograph, printed on salted paper, reveals a high contrast between light and dark areas, typical of early photographic processes. The calotype, an early photographic process developed by William Henry Fox Talbot, allowed for the creation of multiple prints from a single negative, making it a crucial step in the development of photography.