905 - FRATELLI ALINARI (19th), Ancient bronzes, Naples Museum, around 1880, albumen paper print

FRATELLI ALINARI (19th), Ancient bronzes, Naples Museum, around 1880, albumen paper print Fratelli Alinari (19th century): First room with ancient bronzes in the Museo Nazionale in Naples, c. 1880, albumen paper print Technique: albumen paper print Inscription: At the lower part inscribed in the printing plate: "(Ed.ne Alinari) P.e I.a N.o 11020. Napoli - Museo Nazionale. Prima Sala. (delle Statue in bronzo.)". Date: c. 1880 Description: Original photograph with high sharpness of detail. An early testimony of travel photography. Around the middle of the 19th century, more and more tourists from middle-class circles traveled to Italy. At that time, photographs could only be taken with a great deal of time and expensive, unwieldy equipment. This made many tourists all the more grateful for the work of the professional photographer's studios on site to bring back a souvenir from afar for those who stayed at home or to collect as souvenirs. Famous photographers such as Carlo Naya, Giorgio Sommer or the Alinari brothers photographed the most famous sights of their home towns and went on journeys themselves to photograph the most popular destinations of their clients and offer them as albumen prints. Ancient art treasures were also photographed and offered 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 are 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 in the daguerreotype era and worked for the lithographer Guiseppe Bardi, with whom he set up a joint photographic 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; Roman Empire; Museo Nazionale; Sculpture; Horse; Figure, 19th century, Historicism, Archeology, Italy, Size: Albumen paper: 19,3 cm x 24,8 cm (7,6 x 9,8 in) Condition: Rather good condition. In the corners clear impressions of an old mounting. Slightly discolored due to age and along the edges partly slight light damage and brown spots in places. Pale brown spots in the lower center.