918 - FRATELLI ALINARI (19th century), Imperial Gallery at the Museo Nazionale, Naples, around 1880, albumen print

FRATELLI ALINARI (19th century), Imperial Gallery at the Museo Nazionale, Naples, around 1880, albumen print Fratelli Alinari (19th century): Sculptures and busts in the Emperor’s Gallery at the Museo Nazionale, Naples, c. 1880, albumen paper print Technique: albumen paper print Inscription: At the bottom, inscribed on the printing plate: “(Ed.ne Alinari) P.e I.a N.o 11019. Napoli - Museo Nazionale. Il Secondo Portico. (degli Imperatori.)”. Date: c. 1880 Description: Original photograph with high sharpness of detail. An early example of travel photography. Around the middle of the 19th century, more and more tourists from middle-class circles traveled to Italy. At that time, taking photographs required a great deal of time and expensive, cumbersome equipment. This made many tourists all the more grateful for the services of professional photography studios on site, which allowed them to bring back a memento from afar for those who stayed at home or to collect as souvenirs. Famous photographers such as Carlo Naya, Giorgio Sommer, and the Alinari brothers photographed the most famous sights of their hometowns and traveled themselves to photograph their clients’ most popular destinations, offering these images as albumen prints. Ancient art treasures were also photographed and made available to travelers. The high-quality photographs of sculptures and frescoes continued to make an important contribution to documenting art treasures and making them accessible to scholars from all over Europe, who previously had to rely on tracings or engravings if they could not view the original for themselves. “Fratelli Alinari” in Florence is the oldest photographic company still in existence in the world: founded in 1852, a good two decades after the French inventor Joseph Nicéphore Niépce succeeded in capturing an image on a tin plate. The Alinari brothers were Romualdo (1830–1891), Leopoldo (1832–1865), and Guiseppe (1836–1892). Leopoldo began taking photographs during the daguerreotype era and worked for the lithographer Guiseppe Bardi, with whom he established a joint photography studio in 1850. In 1854, Leopoldo bought Bardi’s shares and, together with his brothers, founded the Fratelli Alinari studio. It became one of the most important Italian studios of the 19th century and later one of the largest photo archives in the world, which still exists today. Keywords: Travel photography; Souvenir; Veduta; View; Architectural photography; Italy; Naples; Campania; Antiquity; Sculpture; Roman Empire; Museo Nazionale; Emperors; Caesars, 19th century, Historicism, Archaeology, Italy, Size: Albumen paper: 19.0 cm x 24.6 cm (7.5 x 9.7 in) Condition: In fairly good condition. Clear marks from an old mounting are visible in the corners. Slightly discolored due to age; along the edges, there is some slight light damage and a few brownish spots.