Photographer Page

Album

Norse ships often feature intricately carved ornamentation on their bows, like this bow fragment at the Viking Ship Museum in Oslo, Norway.

In the 1950s Yale University acquired the Vinland Map, which depicts areas of North America described by the Norse sagas. The map was believed to be the earliest depiction of the continent and originally dated to the 1400s, but some scholars were skeptical of its authenticity. After decades of careful examination, it was declared a fake in 2021, when studies revealed the presence of a 20th-century, titanium-based ink in the map’s graphics and texts.

Leif Eriksson sights the continent of North America in Christian Krohg’s 1893 painting at the National Gallery of Norway, Oslo. According to the Norse sagas, written around the 13th century, the voyages to North America occurred circa A.D. 1000.

Workers load a cart with stone that was transported to Paris via the river in a 15th-century miniature from the Ordinances of the Provost of Merchants of Paris.

Workers extract stone in a 15th-century illustration from the encyclopedia "On the Properties of Things" by Bartholomaeus Anglicus.

A 15th-century miniature shows the many stages of raising a cathedral.

Cathedrals could sit partially unfinished for decades, as shown in a painting of 15th-century Dordrecht, Netherlands.

Hall stands with two Inuit people on his first trip to the Arctic between 1860-1862 in this illustration.

This portable desk was used by Austen when she was writing her novels. Her glasses and case rest on its surface.

In Hell’s seventh circle fire rains down on a desert of burning sand. Here, Dante affectionately greets his former schoolteacher Brunetto Latini, who had believed in Dante’s abilities. Despite his mentor’s position, Dante shows him tenderness and respect: “[I]n my mind is fixed ... / ... the dear and good paternal image / Of you, when in the world from hour to hour // You taught me how a man becomes eternal.”