Detailed Visual Description

Optional: 2D objects, 3D Objects, Born Digital

Definition

This element records a description of the elements, depictions, colours and representations in the visual material.

Detailed visual description should be given for objects which would benefit from enhanced description due to their complexity, to enhance access for visually impaired audiences, or to include more detailed interpretation of the object not present elsewhere in the record.

Detailed Visual Description can be used when cataloguing a group of objects, but is typically best used for single objects.

Content

Record the subject of the image with a brief description of how and where they are situated including surrounding details and colours.

346i

Jeffrey Hudson is depicted stood in front of a pulled curtain and balustrade and next to a small, low table, possibly a background set. He is looking at the viewer, holding his left hand to his waist and holding an unidentified object in his right hand.

17366i

The Royal Institution is depicted in the mid-ground, Edinburgh Castle in the background to the left and a street scene in the foreground including a horse and carriage.

3049675i

Outline of a head bound tightly in a headscarf and filled with imagery, including naked bodies with wrapped heads being struck by a hammer, burning cigarettes, heads, and a piano engulfed in a wave.

If they are visibly showing symptoms of a medical condition that is relevant to understanding the visual image, record the area of the body, followed by a brief description.

20188i

The hand is depicted as white with two smallpox pustules on the wrist, one pustule on the index finger and a larger darker pustule on the back of the hand. The background is dark brown at the top and dark blue at the bottom.

3001072i

Identified by comparison with 17th-century prints as a portrait of Barbara Ursler, born in Augsburg in 1629, portrayed half-length directed to right, with long brown prominent hair on the skin of her entire head. Names given to such conditions at various times include hypertrichosis, hirsutism and Ambras syndrome. She married a Dutchman, Johan Michael van Beck, who became her manager. Unlike the hirsute women who earned their living as courtiers alongside dwarfs and jesters, Barbara van Beck was exhibited internationally and became a celebrity through her travels. Her itinerary included London 1637 (where she was seen as a child by John Evelyn), Copenhagen 1639, Paris 1646, Rome 1647, Milan 1648, Augsburg 1653, Frankfurt 1655, London again 1657 (when she was seen again by Evelyn and portrayed playing the organ in an etching by Richard Gaywood), and Beauvais 1660. She disappears from the record in London in 1668, when she was seen by John Bullfinch, who wrote "This woman I saw in Ratcliffe Highway, in the year 1668, and was satisfied that she was a woman". (Ratcliffe Highway was the road later called The Highway, which links the City of London to Docklands.)

Representation

Record if any part of the visual image represents a subject or idea that is non-abstract. Include the source of the interpretation including collaborators and cataloguers.

10743i

A white woman is depicted in a white dress and bonnet and seated in a wooden chair upholstered in red fabric. The background includes a blue wall with a window, picture frame and small table in view, and a brown carpet with a red flower pattern. Several black and brown figures pull on a rope wound around her stomach and another points an arrow into her arm. Her facial expression and body position appear to show pain.

The work is titled 'The cholic', and so it likely represents the muscular contractions and discomfort associated with Colic pain. (Cataloguer's Interpretation)

Two young men in an intimate pose. There is a suggestion of real affection and intimacy in this photograph which seems to go beyond comradeship (James Gardiner)