Robert Macpherson

b. 1811 — d. 1872

Robert Macpherson British, b. Scotland, 1811-1872 His many views of Rome and its environs, produced in the 1850s-60s, place Robert Macpherson among the most prolific and popular of 19th-century photographers of Italy (along with James Anderson in Rome, the Alinari family in Florence, and Carlo Ponti of Venice). Trained as a surgeon in his native Edinburgh, Macpherson moved to Rome in about 1840, becoming a painter, photographer, and occasional dealer in art and antiquities. By the early 1850s he was an acknowledged master of scenic and architectural views, publishing a catalog of his work in 1858. In 1859 he had some 187 views available for purchase, and by 1863 the number had increased to 305. In that same year he made more than 300 photographs of sculpture in the Vatican for a guidebook on the subject. Macpherson maintained his ties to Britain, assisting in the founding of the Scottish Photographic Society. An extensive 1862 London exhibition of some 400 of his works was highly praised. Macpherson's images are found in many collections. Through his acuity as a dealer, in 1868 London's National Gallery purchased Michelangelo's important painting The Entombment. T.W.F.