Animal Locomotion. An Electro-Photographic Investigation Of Consecutive Phases Of Animal Movements. 1872-1885. By Eadweard Muybridge. Published Under The Auspices Of The University Of Pennsylvania. Plates. The Plates Printed By The Photo-Gravure Company.

The eleven-part work contains 781 numbered plates. But its accompanying prospectus - Animal locomotion: an electro-photographic investigation of consecutive phases of animal movements; prospectus and catalogue of plates - contains a removable subscription leaf, enabling subscribers to make their own selection of plates. Therefore the content of sets varies greatly. This set of the Royal Academy contains a title page and 21 plates, numbered 565, 616, 626, 647, 659, 710, 721, 739, 755, 3, 152, 174, 187, 214, 465, 471, 279, 289, 347, 133, 408. (The Academy also holds, without title-page, duplicates of seven plates of the present selection and a further 76 plates - housed and catalogued separately.)

Of the 781 plates 562 show men, women and children, nude, semi-nude or clothed, and 219 other animals (95 of the horse). Each plate presents a series of 'stills' showing the various stages of a complete movement. The present selection of the numbered plates shows [with titles taken from the 'prospectus and catalogue', where known]: a dray-horse (565: 'Hauling; dark-gray Belgian horse Dusel'); man on horse (616: 'Canter; saddle, bay horse Daisy'); man on horse (626); man on horse (647: 'Jumping a hurdle; bareback; rider ...'); mule (659: 'Mule bucking and kicking, Ruth'); dog (710); lion (721: 'Lion, walking'); Bactrian camel (739); bird (755); man walking (3); man jumping (152: 'Jumping, running, straight high jump (shoes)'); woman skipping (174); woman dancing (187: 'Dancing, fancy'); woman and child (214, 465); child (471); man with bat (279); man bowling (289); two men wrestling (347); woman (133); two women bathing (408).

Muybridge began photographing the motion of the horse in 1872, and continued this with an improved shutter working at the speed of a thousandth of a second and with banks of cameras from 1877. From 1884 his photographs of human and other animal motion were made at Pennsylvania University - this production of the Photo-gravure Company was one of the most complex in the history of collotype. Muybridge's studies demonstrated that artists' traditional depictions of the positions of moving animals had been untrue to nature.

Many examples of Muybridge's work were bequeathed to Kingston-on-Thames Public Library (see Kingston Museum, Eadweard Muybride: the Kingston Museum bequest, 2004), and may be seen at the Science Museum, London.