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Paviot, Alain, Le cliché-verre: Corot, Delacroix, Millet, Rousseau,
Daubigny, Paris: Paris Musées, 1995.
Peters, Susan Dodge, The Photographer’s Hand, Rochester:
International Museum of Photography at George Eastman
House, 1980.
Rix, Brenda, The Clichés-verre of the Barbizon School, Toronto:
Art Gallery of Ontario, 1983.
Stourdzé, Sam, Le Cliché-verre de Corot à Man Ray, Vallée
d’Aoste : Région Autonome de la Vallée d’Aoste, 1997.
CLIFFORD, CHARLES (1819–1863)
Although he was British-born in South Wales, Charles
Clifford became one of the fi nest photographers in
Spain. His work combined the highest technical stan-
dards with a sympathetic eye towards the architecture
of Spain.
Little if known of Clifford before he arrived in Spain
in 1850, although it is apparent that he was already
skilled in photography. Several accounts of his life sug-
gest that he went to Spain to work as a balloon pilot—or
‘aeronaut of aerostatic balloons’ as one source describes
him. And shortly after arriving in Spain he is believed
to have attempted to make daguerreotype aerial views
from a balloon, together with the French lithographer
Alfred Guesdon. The success or otherwise of this ven-
ture is unclear, as none of these experimental images is
known to have survived.
However, it is his work after 1852, when he moved
to Madrid, which marks him out as one of the country’s
fi nest photographers. Working with calotype, waxed pa-
per, and wet collodion, he produced an enormous output
within a relatively few years, exhibiting and publishing
widely. His control of light and space marked his work
out as exceptional, although he was less concerned with
architectural and geometric accuracy than many of his
contemporaries. Working with a very direct and visually
engaging style, much of his work—especially those im-
ages of the regeneration and modernisation of Madrid
has a surprisingly fresh documentary feel to it.
Portfolios such as his 1856 Vistas del Capricho,
containing fi fty fi ve views of the 15th century palace
at Guadalahara and the 18th century summer house of
the Dukes of Infantado at Capricho were well received.
Voyages en Espagne (Journeys through Spain) produced
in the same year, contained four hundred large format
(35cm × 45cm) images, and was widely acclaimed
when exhibited in Paris. A project on this scale would,
of course, have taken some considerable time to com-
plete. Some of the photographs which would eventually
form part of Voyages en Espagne were displayed at a
meeting of the Photographic Society in London in April
- Having progressed from calotype to le Gray’s
Waxed Paper process, these images portrayed the great
churches, palace, monuments and landscape of Spain.
Gernsheim suggests that Clifford was working towards a
much wider publication of Voyages en Espagne but that
his death in early 1863 brought the project to a halt.
In Spain the calibre of his work was recognised at
government level, and resulted in several important civic
commissions. Thus, from 1856 he photographed many
of the city improvement projects in Madrid.
Clifford’s photographs of the construction between,
1856 and 1859, of Queen Isabella’s canal and aquaduct
system to bring fresh water to Madrid are fascinating
and important historical documents. Images showing the
apparent chaos of the construction site for the Pontón
de la Oliva, reservoir-dam, and the long snaking route
of the Sifón del Gualix, contrast vividly with the stark
simplicity of his views of the partially completed tall
arches which would eventually carry one of the major
aquaducts into Madrid. A signifi cant number of fi ne
salted paper prints from collodion negatives survive
from this project.
Clifford’s photographs brought him to the attention
of Queen Isabella II, who was known to give albums of
his architectural and landscape photography to visiting
heads of state, and in September 1860 he accompanied
her and her entourage on a journey to eastern Spain and
the Balearics, arriving back in October. The albums of
images which he produced on his return revealed all
the places they had visited en route. By this time he
was using collodion glass plates and printing on albu-
men paper.
On November 14th 1861, at Windsor Castle, Clifford
made an exceptionally fi ne portrait of Queen Victoria,
dressed in a long evening dress and wearing a coronet.
The portrait was well received, and critics in Britain
praised it for the regal quality it gave to the Queen, in
sharp contrast to the rather less formal views of her and
her family which were being published at the time by
Mayall and others.
Historians disagree about the genesis of this royal
‘sitting,’ and indeed about Clifford’s relationship with
both the Spanish and British monarchs. It has long
been held that the idea for the portrait was instigated by
Queen Isabella, with several sources claiming that she
sent Clifford to Windsor to take the picture. Those same
sources claim that Clifford enjoyed some sort of offi cial
status as court photographer to Isabella. Others suggest
that the portrait was at the request of Queen Victoria.
Further research on this is clearly needed.
It would, however, appear that both Clifford and
Juan Laurent did enjoy signifi cant royal patronage from
Isabella, and the selection of Clifford to accompany the
Queen on two of her journeys suggests that he was, in-
deed, a favourite. Henisch & Henisch (1994) remark that
“Isabella was an unhappy woman and an incompetent
queen, but she was blessed with one stroke of good for-
tune: the inspiration to appoint Charles Clifford. No one
could have been better fi tted than he for the unenviable