25
pictures of the Royal Family and photographs from
the Queen’s travels. The majority of the photographs
were taken in England, Denmark, Greece and Norway.
Proceeds were donated to over thirty different charities.
Queen Alexandra died on November 20, 1924, fourteen
years after the death of her husband, and was survived
by four of their fi ve children.
Andrea Korda
ALINARI, FRATELLI
Italian fi rm operating since 1854 to the present day
The fi rm of Alinari Bros was founded at Florence in
1854 by the brothers Leopoldo (1832–1865), Giuseppe
(1836–1890), and Romualdo (1830–1890). Leopoldo
had already been working for a number of years as an
apprentice of the chalcographer Luigi Bardi. In the fi rst
half of the nineteenth century Bardi’s fi rm had produced
photographic views of Florence in addition to the tradi-
tional copper engravings. These were the years in which
copper engraving was giving way to photography, which
was cheaper and therefore more accessible. Bardi’s
views bore the blankstamp “Luigi Bardi Firenze,” and
today they are attributed to Leopoldo Alinari, who
learnt his photographic technique from Bardi. Some of
Leopoldo’s views were printed in Eugène Piot’s L’Italie
monumentale, which was published in Paris in 1851.
Bardi continued to encourage Leopoldo and got him
to open a shop next-door to his in Via Cornina (today
Via del Trebbio) at Florence, to sell pictures to tourists.
From 1854 onwards the pictures sold in Leopoldo’s shop
bore the stamp “Fratelli Alinari/Fotografi /Firenze/presso
Luigi Bardi” (Alinari Bros/Photographs/Florence/near
Luigi Bardi’s), a sign of Leopoldo’s continuing col-
laboration with Bardi.
Later Leopoldo was to have the main part in the
organization of the fi rm and in deciding its cultural
policies; Giuseppe supervised the technical aspects,
and Romualdo was involved in the administration. The
fi rst known printed catalogue, printed in French in 1856
(Collection des Vues Monumentales de la Toscane en
Photographie par les Frères Alinari, Florence, Louis
Bardi, Avril 1856) shows that initially production was
concentrated on views of monuments and panoramas of
cities in Tuscany, in particular of Florence, Pisa, Siena
and Arezzo. Some of these views were exhibited at the
Exposition Universelle, Paris, in 1855, where the Ali-
naris won second prize and thus qualifi ed as one of the
important fi rms of photographers in Europe. In an exhi-
bition at Brussels in 1856 they won the gold medal.
For the negatives they used the collodion process.
They devoted their attention to portraits and, from
1858, specialized in reproductions of works of art,
achieving excellent results. Their fi rst photographic
campaign in this area was in 1858 and it concentrated
on fi fty drawings in the Uffi zi at Florence. The pho-
tographs made a great impression and were praised by
eminent scholars including John Ruskin. He extolled
their descriptive clarity and precision, qualities which
thenceforth were the unmistakable hallmarks of Alinari
production. In the same year Queen Victoria’s husband
Prince Albert commissioned the Alinaris to reproduce
Raphael’s designs in the Accademia di Venezia and
in the private collection of Archduke Karl in Vienna.
These three pieces of work were greatly admired, and
Luigi Bardi published them in a single volume (Disegni
di Raffaello e d’altri maestri esistenti nelle gallerie di
Firenze, Venezia, e Vienna riprodotti in fotografi a dai
Fratelli Alinari) (The drawings of Raphael and other
maestri in the galleries of Florence, Venice, and Vienna
photographically reproduced by Alinari Bros). Of these
three enterprises there remain today some negatives in
the Alinari archives at Florence, and these, together
with some family portraits, form the oldest nucleus of
the fi rm’s photographs that exists today. In 1861 the
Alinaris took part in the Esposizione Italiana, Firenze,
showing views and portraits of the royal family. By now
the Alinaris’ fame was such that they had been invitedAlinari, Fratelli. Moise by Michael Angelo, central sculpture of
the Tomb of Julius the Second.
Courtesy: The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles. © The J.
Paul Getty Museum.