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favour of photography by the early 1850s, although it is
very likely that he had already begun to take photographs
using the calotype process as early as the late 1840s.
One or more calotypes associated with the activities
of the Calotype Club of Edinburgh have a tentative at-
tribution to MacPherson but may have been taken by
James Calder MacPhail. They are consistent in format
and general geographic location with a number of other
calotypes which appear to have been taken by Sir James
Dunlop during his Grand Tour of 1847. It is also pos-
sible but as yet unconfi rmed that Dunlop introduced
MacPherson to photography.
MacPherson’s adopted the albumen process at the
start of his commercial career and then progressed to
the faster collodion-albumen process. He also experi-
mented with modifi cations to photolithography and in
1853 obtained a patent for improvements employing
bitumen. He went on to demonstrate photolithography at
the newly formed Société française de photographie and
at the Photographic Society of Scotland. MacPherson
exhibited two photolithographs and fi ve albumen prints
at the British Association exhibition at in the showroom
of Wylie and Lochead’s Warehouse in Glasgow in 1855.
He contributed an even larger representation of his
photographs to exhibitions at the Photographic Institu-
tion in the same year and at the Photographic SocietyMACPHERSON, ROBERT
MacPherson, Robert. The Theater of
Marcellus, from Piazza Montanara.
The Metropolitan Museum of Art,
Gilman Collection, Purchase,
Alfred Stieglitz Society Gifts,
2005 (2005.100.59) Image © The
Metropolitan Musem of Art.