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Photograph by Ed Pollard, Hasselblad H4D50 - 2016.
Dutch Gap Canal
Photograph by Ed Pollard, Hasselblad H4D50 - 2016.
Photograph by Ed Pollard, Hasselblad H4D50 - 2016.

Dutch Gap Canal

Artist Egbert Guy Fowx (American, 1821 - 1889)
CultureAmerican
Date1865
MediumAlbumen print
DimensionsOverall, Image: 5 3/4 × 7 7/8 in. (14.6 × 20 cm)
Overall: 16 × 20 in. (40.6 × 50.8 cm)
Credit LineMuseum purchase
Object number91.93
Not on view
DescriptionThis is an albumen print photograph of the Dutch Gap canal.

Label Textleft Egbert Guy Fowx American, 1821–1889 Dutch Gap Canal, 1865 Albumen print (photograph) Museum purchase 91.93 right Timothy O’Sullivan American, 1840–1882 High Bridge Crossing, The Appomattox, near Farmville on South Side Railroad, VA, 1865 From Gardner’s Photographic Sketch Book of the War, published by Philp & Solomons, Washington, D.C., 1866 Albumen print (photograph) Museum purchase and partial gift of Carol L. Kaufman and Stephen C. Lampl, in memory of their parents Helen and Carl Lampl 91.23.98 War’s human toll is all too familiar, but war also has a striking impact on the land. The image on the right depicts High Bridge, which spans the Appomattox near Farmville, Virginia. Prized as the second tallest bridge in America in the mid-1850s, the bridge was nearly destroyed by Confederate soldiers fleeing Union troops. Despite the damage, Union soldiers crossed the river and continued their pursuit to Appomattox, where General Robert E. Lee surrendered to Ulysses S. Grant, ending the war. The photograph on the left depicts the Dutch Gap Canal, a waterway dug by Union forces to bypass Confederate forts near Richmond. Facing regular attacks from Confederate soldiers, 120 men, including many freed African Americans, removed 15,000 cubic yards of soil and rock. When explosives blew out the central dam to connect the canal’s two halves, however, it failed to breach the gap, leaving the canal unusable until after the war. ProvenanceSimon Lowinsky (dealer) to Charles Isaacs (dealer) to CMA (1991)Exhibition History"A History of Photography: 15 Years at the Chrysler Museum," The Chrysler Museum, Norfolk, Va., September 11, 1993 - March 6, 1994. "New Light on Land: Photographs from the Chrysler Collection," Chrysler Museum of Art, Norfolk, VA, January 28 - May 15, 2016. "East of the Mississippi: Nineteenth-Century American Landscape Photography," National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC, March 12 - July 16, 2017; New Orleans Museum of Art, New Orleans, LA, October 6, 2017 - January 7, 2018.Published ReferencesDiane Waggoner with Russell Lord and Jennifer Raab, _East of the Mississippi: 19th-Century American Landscape Photography_, (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2017), fig. 105, p. 143. ISBN: 978-0-300-22401-6.