| Names: | Born: Janet Mann (uncertain)
Other: Jessie Mann (uncertain)
Other: Miss Mann
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| | Active: | Scotland |
Preparing biographies
Writing to David Octavius Hill on March 27, 1847, the great engineer James Nasmyth inquired: “How goes on the divine solar art? and how does that worthy artist Mr. Adamson the authentic contriver & manipulator in art of light and darkness? and thrice worthy Miss Mann the most skillfull and zealous of assistants.” That she was some kind of assistant to Hill and Robert Adamson in their calotype studio is all that is known of Miss Mann, who was very likely one of the three Mann sisters: either Margaret (1795-1861), Elizabeth (1799-1872), or Jessie (baptized Janet; 1805-1867). The sisters had grown up near Hill in Perth and their brother was his solicitor. By the early 1840s they all lived on Leopold Place in Edinburgh, very close to the Hill & Adamson studio. If the “most skillful and zealous” assistant was indeed one of these three, as seems almost certain, Jessie, the youngest, emerges as the most likely candidate.
Roger Taylor & Larry J. Schaaf Impressed by Light: British Photographs from Paper Negatives, 1840-1860 (Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 2007)
This biography is courtesy and copyright of the Metropolitan Museum of Art and is included here with permission.
Date last updated: 4 Nov 2012.
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