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1885 the Königlich Preußische Meßbildanstalt (Royal
Prussian Photogrammetric Institute), the fi rst photo-
grammetric institution in the world, was established
by Albrecht Meydenbauer (1834–1921). Between 1885
and 1909, Meydenbauer and his staff took about 11,000
survey photographs of around 1,200 Prussian monu-
ments. A further 1,600 photographs of 100 buildings in
Germany outside Prussia were also acquired and some
800 photographs were taken of buildings outside of
Germany, including in Athens, Baalbek and Istanbul.
Meydenbauer’s photographic archive survives to this
day and is now under the control of the Brandenbur-
gisches Landesamt für Denkmalpfl ege (Offi ce for the
Preservation of Monuments of Culture of the Federal
County of Brandenburg).
In parallel, civil engineers also began to use photog-
raphy as a professional tool and form collections. In
France the l’Ecole des ponts et chausses commissioned
photography from the late 1850s and formed a record of
civil engineering work. The British Institution of Civil
Engineers began its collection of photographs in the mid
1860s, by which time evidence suggests that all major
civil engineering projects were being photographically
documented.
The use of photography by government and state
departments is also noteworthy. The military extensively
used photography to document fortifi cations, equipment,
maneuvers and battlefi elds. The British Royal Engineers
began forming collections of photographs during the
1850s and also recorded art and architecture on behalf
of other public institutions. The military also formed
collections for related activities such as the thousands
of photographs taken to produce The Medical and Sur-
gical History of the War of the Rebellion published in
Washington, D.C., between 1870 and 1888.
The criminal justice system began to form archives of
photographs as early as the 1840s. In 1843 daguerreo-
types were being taken of prisoners in the prison in
Brussels and kept by the Sûreté Publique (Criminal In-
vestigation Department). By the 1860s many European
states were employing photography to create documen-
tary records of prisoners. Scene of crime photographs
were also being widely taken from this time.
The systematic use of photography within cultural
and heritage institutions began in the 1840s. The Minu-
toli Institut in Liegnitz in Silesia was particularly infl u-
ential and formative on British attitudes. The institute
had been created by Alexander Freiherr von Minutoli
(1806–1887) and had opened to the public in 1845. By
1848 the photographer Louis Birkes had taken at least
25 daguerreotypes of pieces from the collection. These
were mounted in a frame and sent to various members
of the Institut’s society (Gewerbevereine). Some of
Birkes’ Daguerreotypes were exhibited at the 1851
Great Exhibition in London. Minutoli also exhibited
Daguerreotypes from his collection at the Allegemeine
Deutsche Industrie-Ausstellung in Munich in 1854 and
in the following year exhibited three albums at the Ex-
position universelle in Paris. In 1856 he exhibited Salt
paper photographs of his collection at the Industrial Arts
Exhibition in Brussels At the 1862 International Exhibi-
tion in London, he advertised, and perhaps even exhib-
ited, a seven-volume, twenty-four section set containing
some 4,000 ‘works of antiquity, photographed from the
originals and intended as models for manufacture, and
artisans’ Priced at £120 (800 thaler).
By the early 1850s a number of major museums and
galleries began to build collections of photographs,
sometimes exploiting a dedicated photographer such as
Charles Thurston Thompson at the South Kensington
Museum and Roger Fenton at the British Museum. Other
institutions such as the British Library, the Bibliotheque
National in Paris and the Library of Congress represent
some other pertinent examples. The South Kensington
Museum began its collection of photographs around- Some 139 were listed as being held in the museum
by the following year, almost entirely represented by
125 photographs of Maxime du Camp’s views of Egypt,
Nubia, Palestine and Syria. By 1880 there were some
50,000 photographs in the collection. Each photographic
image—including those illustrating books and other
publications—were individually logged in museum’s
the Photograph Register and allocated a unique number.
The register not only recorded the date of acquisition
but also the provenance and cost. It thus forms a rich
source of information about a number of key aspects of
mid 19th century photography.
Other key aspects of the photographic collections at
the South Kensington Museum were the commercial
sale of copies of the photographs taken on behalf of
the museum—both of its collections and temporary
exhibitions—and also aspects of outreach. The South
Kensington Museum formed a ‘Circulation Collec-
tion’ for the provincial schools of art and photographic
publications, such as the Art Workmanship volumes
published during the late 1860s and early 1870s, played
a prominent role.
Universities and research institutes also began to form
collections of photographs from the middle of the 19th
century. In the 1850s, Harvard University received a gift
from Francis Calley Gray (1790–1856) of some 4,000
photographic reproductions of European paintings. The
Deutsches Archäologisches Institut founded in 1829,
which became a Prussian State Institute in 1871 and an
Imperial institute in 1874, also formed collections of
photographs. However, during the 20th century many
universities and scholarly institutions disposed of their
19th century photographic holdings.
Photographic societies themselves began to form
collections, primarily through donations. The Royal