1097
structure not unlike a railway shed with a decorative brick
façade designed by local architect Edward Salomons.
Inside, the walls and ribs of the galleries were decorated
by the fi rm of Crace of London and each column bore the
gilt monogram of the show: ‘ATE.’ The main hall was
fl anked by two picture galleries while the whole layout
resembled a cathedral with a transept and a massive or-
gan at the far end. Watercolours and photographs were
displayed on a balcony, and the Indian collections were
tucked into a gallery on one side of the organ.
The exhibition brought together some sixteen thou-
sand works of art, including paintings by Duccio, Mi-
chelangelo and Rembrandt, Renaissance maiolica and
glass, medieval metalwork, treasures from the English
East India Company, as well as modern sculpture, paint-
ings, watercolours and photographs. The organisers used
three compelling arguments to persuade lenders: the idea
of educating the masses, the promotion of British wealth,
and the ultimate incentive, royal patronage.
Photography was represented by 597 examples of
which 247 were portraits. It included the work of such
names as Francis Bedford, Roger Fenton, Gustave Le
Gray, John Dillwyn Llewelyn, John Mayall and William
Lake Price. Oscar Rejlander’s Two Ways of Life was
hung at the exhibition and a print purchased by Queen
Victoria for Prince Albert. Contributing photographers
from the Manchester area included James & Robert
Mudd and Alfred Brothers.
In 1853 Philip H. Delamotte recorded the various
stages in the reconstruction of the Crystal Palace at
Sydenham and photographed the Royal Family there in
1854 and 1855. Delamotte was later awarded the photo-
graphic rights for The Exhibition of Art Treasures. Al-
fred Brothers was asked by the Manchester print dealer
Thomas Agnew to take photographs of the opening of
the exhibition that was attended by Queen Victoria and
other members of the Royal Family.
More than one million visitors came by road or rail
to the Old Trafford site. On a single day the show was
seen by the Duke of Wellington, the Bishop of Oxford,
Florence Nightingale and the painter David Roberts. The
exhibition gave hundreds of thousands of working-class
Victorians a glimpse of a world beyond the factory and
the pub. For many, 1857 marked the start of ‘a noble era
in which Art took Industry by the hand, and gave her all
she needed to command the world’ (The Art-Treasures
Examiner, 2).
Michael Hallett
See also: Albert, Josef; Bedford, Francis; Fenton,
Roger; Le Gray, Gustave; Llewelyn, John Dillwyn;
Mayall, John Jabez Edwin; Price, William Lake;
Rejlander, Oscar Gustav; Delamotte, Philip Henry;
and Great Exhibition of the Works of Industry of All
Nations, Crystal Palace, Hyde Park (1851).
Further Reading
The Art-Treasures Examiner: A Pictorial, Critical and Histori-
cal Record of the Art-Treasures Exhibition, at Manchester, in
1857 , Manchester, 1857.
Hallett, Michael, Signifi cant years in the history of photography in
the Manchester area, unpublished MPhil thesis for the Council
for National Academic Awards (CNAA), 1976.
Manchester Guardian, 5th May 1957.
A walk through the Art-Treasures Exhibition at Manchester under
the Guidance of Dr. Waagen. A Companion of the Offi cial
Catalogue, London, 1857.PHOTOGRAPHY AND REPRODUCTION
While photography can be defi ned as a reprographic
process, and thus all images created are reproductions,
one of the great applications of the medium during the
second half of the 19th century was in the reproduction
of manufactured objects and aspects of the natural world
and its phenomena.
Photography redefi ned the concept of facsimile and
objectivity throughout the second half of the 19th century
and the medium was exploited across a wide range of ap-
plications where accurate reproduction was required. In
order to achieve this, photography needed to overcome a
number of technical barriers. The fi rst was the ability to
reproduce fi ne linear detail and replicate tonal ranges in
order for a monochromatic photographic image to ‘look
like’ an original subject. The other challenge was to act
as an intermediary to capture and then reproduce colour
in printed form. Both of these were achieved in a number
of stages during the 19th century though it was the 20th
century that saw their eventual full fl owering.
The 19th century saw photography become fully inte-
grated and inextricably linked to ‘ink on paper’ printing.
Photographic illustration accompanying printed text had
started as early as 1840 with the fi ve photomechanical
heliogravures in Berres’ Phototyp nach der Erfi ndung
des Prof. Berres in Wien. By the end of the century
photography—largely through industrialized photo-
mechanical processes—was illustrating publications
distributed across the entirety of human activity. Thus
photography distributed the reproduced world through
a number of channels; as loose photographic prints in a
wide variety of formats; as photomechanical prints and
as illustration to printed texts.
Photographic formats included the stereoscopic view,
and the lantern slide, both modifi cations to existing tech-
nology. Sir David Brewster (1781–1868) invented the
fi rst practical stereoscopic camera in 1849 and this ‘3-D’
format quickly became popular, being used to reproduce
subjects including topographical views, sculpture, ar-
chitecture and sets of genre scenes representing stories
depicted through pictorial narratives. Current events
such as wars, and natural disasters including fl oods,
fi res, train-wrecks, and earthquakes were enormously