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prevailing characteristic of Western culture at the time.
Photography immediately became a tool for this tradi-
tion and fulfi lled its original goal of obtaining images
of the world’s most beautiful monuments and places.
To cite an early example, in 1840 the writer Théophile
Gautier and Eugène Piot travelled with daguerreotype
equipment to record mementos of their trip through the
Iberian peninsula. But above all, the large European
publishers of illustrated publications began to send their
own employees to obtain images on which to base en-
gravings. This was true of the series on Spain made by
Edmond François Jomard for the famous Excursions da-
guerriennes by Noël-Marie Lerebours, which included
two views of Granada (the Patio de los Leones and the
Albaicín) and one of Seville (the Alcázar). This series
is particularly important as an iconographic reference
for the numerous photographs made of the country from
then on. Initiatives similar to these foreign publications
also began to appear in Spain itself, such as Recuerdos
y Bellezas de España (1839–1865), published by Fran-
cisco Javier Parcerissa y Boada.
The development of calotypes, with their ability to
be reproduced, defi nitively spurred the foundation of
the fi rst photographic publishing houses. Starting in
1845 with Nicolaas Henneman’s contributions to the
Talbotype Illustrations to the Annals of the Artists of
Spain, many travellers, mainly British and French, ar-
rived in Spain, often on their way to the Middle East,
and took photographs that were later marketed in their
own countries. These travellers included: Louis-Au-
guste and Auguste-Rosalie Bisson (c.1848), Claudius
Galen Wheelhouse (1849), Louis-Alphonse Davanne
(c.1850), the Mayer brothers (c.1850), Vicomte Joseph
Vigier (1850, 1851, 1853), Hugo Owen (1851), August
F. Oppenheim (1852), Edward King Tenison (c.1853),
John C. Grace (c.1854–56), Charles Piazzi-Smyth
(1858), aided by his wife Jessie Duncan, Gustave de
Beaucorps (1858), Jakob August Lorent (1858), Francis
Frith (c.1856–59), Warren de la Rue (1860), Claude-
Marie Ferrier (1861), R. P. Napper (c.1863), Louis de
Clercq (c.1863), Charles Thurston Thompson (1868),
George Washington Wilson (c.1889), and Paul Nadar
(c.1895). Likewise, some of the foreigners settled in
Spain began to use calotypes, including Clifford, Franck
and Leygonier (who opened Seville’s fi rst studio and
sold calotypes), as did Spaniards such as Pascual Pérez
y Rodríguez in Valencia.
Most of these photographers busied themselves
producing images—views and popular characters—of
typical locales, such as Madrid (El Escorial, the Royal
Palace and the Puerta de Alcalá) and Andalusia, the
places visited frequently by the romantic travellers who
were also devotees of calotype prints.
The presence in Seville of a fi gure such as Antonio
María Felipe Luis d’Orléans, Duke of Montpensier,
who was a patron and collector of photography, surely
attracted some of these travellers too. In general, there
was a certain thematic homogeneity, although some
photographers, who were usually anonymous, recorded
scenes of everyday life for local sale. Images of Spain’s
colonies overseas, taken by Mouton y Villar and Juan
Buil, among others, also departed from this idealised
repertory.
But the true counterpoint to this romantic representa-
tion of an idealised Spain came from another series of
images: industrial photographs linked to the technical
and scientifi c modernisation process carried out dur-
ing the liberal monarchy of Isabel II (1843–1868). On
another level, however, they could also be understood
as an exaltation of what was sublime within the tech-
nological landscape and therefore as a continuation of
a certain romantic aesthetic. During this period, the
Crown used this new form of representation both as a
symbol of technological modernity and to legitimise
and promote a different view of the country more in
line with the development of the industrial revolution.
Major public works, such as the bridges and railways
that were radically transforming Spanish territory, were
documented. Two of the best in this fi eld were Charles
Clifford, and the Frenchman Jean Laurent, who were
undoubtedly the most important foreign photographers
in 19th-century Spain. Clifford was Isabel II’s court
photographer from 1858 onwards, and accompanied her
on royal visits; much of his work was used as a powerful
political propaganda tool favouring the monarchy and
the progress it promoted. Apart from his more pictur-
esque series, Clifford documented the construction of
the Canal de Isabel II (1855–56 and 1858), which has
continued to provide water to Madrid ever since. He also
documented one of the era’s great urban renovations,
that performed in Madrid’s Puerta del Sol (1856–1862),
a square conceived by liberals as a new monumental and
central public space. These photographs of the Puerta del
Sol recall Marville’s work on Paris during Haussman’s
remodelling. At the time photography in Spain was
clearly in the service of government institutions, as was
confi rmed in Spain’s capital city by the Royal Order of 8
May 1869 requiring all public works to be photographed
and copies sent to the main institutions.
J. Laurent, who had lived in Spain since 1843 and
who began to take photographs in 1857, created the
19th-century’s most important commercial enterprise
and photographic archive of Spain (Laurent y Cia.),
which employed hundreds of professionals. Its Paris
branch distributed work throughout Europe for over 50
years. Laurent’s company documented all sorts of sub-
jects, ranging from cities, monuments and reproductions
of masterpieces of Spanish painting to celebrities and
popular characters. His photographs of railways left and
invaluable record, like those he made in collaboration