[Mrs. Elizabeth (Johnstone) Hall]

The fisherwomen of Newhaven, Scotland were noted for their natural beauty and picturesque costumes. Writing in her journal in August 1843, Elizabeth Rigby (1809-93) described one of the fishwives as "with as heavy a load of petticoats as of fish: a lovely blooming creature, with a complexion of that transparent kind of which our aristocracy are most proud. . . . She was laden with clothes, petticoat over petticoat, striped and whole colour, all of the thickest woollen material."

Hill and Adamson’s (David Octavius Hill [1802-70] and Robert Adamson [1821-48]) intimate portrait of Mrs. Elizabeth Hall is a powerful tour de force of simplicity. She looks away from the camera and slightly down, half of her face cast in shadow. The light falls on the creel's horizontal wickerwork, which is juxtaposed with the apron's vertical stripes. Hill's later caption for the image—"A Newhaven Beauty, 'It's no fish ye're buying: it's men's lives,'" taken from Sir Walter Scott's novel The Antiquary (1816)—reveals not only the popularity of the fisherfolk as subjects but also a knowledge of Scott's (1771-1832) work. The reference to the cost of the fish relating directly to men's lives bore a certain amount of truth; the powerful waves and treacherously cold waters of the North Sea made fishing a perilous job.

Anne M. Lyden. Hill and Adamson, In Focus: Photographs from the J. Paul Getty Museum (Los Angeles: J. Paul Getty Museum, 1999), 74. ©1999, J. Paul Getty Museum.

For more information about Hill and Adamson’s photographic series on Newhaven see: Hill and Adamson: Place