The Bubble — Clarence H. White, 1898

Clarence H. White made The Bubble in 1898 and pulled this particular print in 1905, in platinum. He was a founding member of the Photo-Secession alongside Alfred Stieglitz, and this print came to the Metropolitan Museum of Art through the Stieglitz collection in 1933. White later founded a school of photography whose students included Paul Strand, Dorothea Lange and Margaret Bourke-White, which makes him one of the more quietly consequential figures in American photography.

Platinum is the reason work like this still looks the way it does. The image sits into the fibre of the paper rather than on top of it, giving a long, gentle tonal scale with no hard black and no glare. White built his reputation on unhurried domestic light, and the restraint of the process suits it: nothing is forced, and the picture rewards standing closer rather than further away.

Each piece is printed to order and stretched over a 1.25 inch solid wood frame, with the image continuing around the edges. It arrives ready to hang, no framing required, in two vertical sizes cut close to the proportions of the original print. The source file is an open-access reproduction of a photograph now in the public domain.

• Medium: matte canvas, stretched over a 1.25 inch solid wood frame
• Orientation: vertical
• Sizes: 16×20in, 24×30in
• Finish: monochrome reproduction, matte surface
• Hanging: arrives ready to hang, no frame required
• Artwork: Clarence H. White, The Bubble, 1898, printed 1905, platinum print
• Original held by the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Alfred Stieglitz Collection
• Printed to order, shipped from the nearest production partner