The cover of Led Zeppelin’s fourth album, popularly known as ‘Led Zeppelin IV’, and published in 1971, is one of the most iconic in history, but it contained a mystery, since the identity of the man who appears on it was unknown.
Until now. 52 years after the release of “Led Zeppelin IV”, English researcher Brian Edwards has discovered the original photograph, taken in Victorian times of Lot Long, a Wiltshire birdkeeper, by photographer Ernest Farmer.
The researcher from the University of West England discovered the snapshot, which he recognized instantly, searching through a photo album he had found at an auction house, according to information published by The New York Times.
The discovery confirms that the image that appears on the cover of “Led Zeppelin IV” is not a painting, as has been believed for decades, but a photograph. The original snapshot is in black and white, but the one with color applied – the one that appears on the cover – has never been recovered. Robert Plant and Jimmy Page are said to have initially found the photograph while visiting an antique shop.
The discovery of the image of Lot Long has shed more light on the identity of the man, who was a widower at the time of the snapshot, and lived in a cottage located on Shaftesbury Road. Long was born in Mere in 1823 and died in 1893.
