71
a sense of visual truth from a region previously often
represented by exaggerated and fanciful images. With
signifi cant investment in skills and equipment reliable
results and useful images could be achieved but results
and how the images were utilised varied widely.
By the end of the nineteenth century photography
was well placed to serve what became known as the
Heroic Age of Antarctic exploration and the advances
in science and technology that would follow in the fi rst
two decades of the twentieth century.
Richard Ferguson
See also: Expedition and Survey Photography;
History 4: 1850s; and Royal Society, London.
Further Reading
Abney, R. E., Photographic operations in the recent Arctic expedi-
tion, Photographic Journal, Dec 21 1876, 8–10.
Condon, Richard G., The history and development of Arctic pho-
tography, Arctic Anthropology vol 26, 1989 1, 46–87, 1989.
Cooke, A., and Holland, Clive, The Exploration of Northern
Canada—500 to 1920 a Chronology, Toronto: The Arctic
history press, 1978.
Fogg, Gordon E., A History of Antarctic Science, Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1992.
Hayes, Isaac, The Land of Desolation, London: Sampson Low,
Marston, Low and Searle, 1871.
Headland, Robert K., A Chronological List of Antarctic Expedi-
tions and Related Historical Events, Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1989.
Levere, Trevor H., Science and the Canadian Arctic: A Century
of Exploration 1818–1918, Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 1993.
ARGENTINA
The daguerreotype
To understand the spread of photography in the whole
country it is necessary to keep in mind that Buenos
Aires was the main city and the only harbor devoted
to international commerce. Moreover, the nation was
involved in several internal confl icts.
Daguerreotypes were referred to for the fi rst time
in a Buenos Aires newspaper, the Gaceta Mercantil,
on March 11th, 1840. It merely reproduced an article
published in France. The demonstrations that took place
at Montevideo (Uruguay) in March 1840, conducted by
the Abbot Comte, were not commented in Buenos Aires
due to political reasons. Three years elapsed before the
arrival of the daguerreotype to Buenos Aires, this delay
being caused by the French naval blockade to Buenos
Aires harbor.
On June 1843 advertisements began to be published
in the Gaceta Mercantil, The British Packett, and the
Diario de la tarde, in which a North American, John
Elliot, announced his studio at 56, Recova Nueva street.
At the same time, the Litografía Argentina, at 28 Potosí
Street, owned by a Spanish citizen, Gregorio Ibarra,
informed the customers about the arrival from Paris of
two cameras. In Buenos Aires the daguerreotype did
not the same popular interest as in Paris or New York.
It was still a small town and preserved many of its old
colonial habits.
Another North American, John Amstrong Bennet,
opened the second gallery of Buenos Aires in 1845, at
121 Piedad Street. He arrived from Mobile, Alabama,
and worked as a daguerreotypist in Montevideo (Uru-
guay) during 1842 and 1843; by the end of 1845,he
had left Buenos Aires for Bogotá (Colombia). In 1846,
Thomas Columbus Helsby, who owned the Galería
Montevideana in Uruguay, with his brother William,
made frequent trips to Buenos Aires and worked as
itinerant portraitist. In 1853 he settled with his brother
in Chile, where they established renowned galleries, in
Santiago as well as in Valparaiso.
Charles DeForest Fredricks (1823–1894), the most
important photographer among those active in Argentina
in the mid-nineteenth century, came to Rio de la Plata af-
ter travelling with his camera through Venezuela, Brazil
and Uruguay. Although the fi rst itinerant daguerreotyp-
ists worked in Buenos Aires, an Italian citizen, Aristide
Stephani (1820–1865), opened the fi rst provincial gal-
lery as early as in 1846, in the city of Corrientes, where
Anselmo Fleurquin and Joaquín Olarán became active
soon afterwards. In 1855, a German, Adolfo Alexander
(1822–1881), crossed the Andes coming from Chile to
Argentina and worked in San Juan and Mendoza. A
year later Amadeo Jacques—the future director of the
most renowned high school in Buenos Aires—earned
his living as a daguerreotypist in Santa Fe and Tucuman.
At nearly the same time, Desiderio Aguiar—born in the
Province of San Juan—an Englishman, Fergusson, and
a North American, Bradley, made succesful careers tak-
ing photographs of the principal cattle-owners’ families
at the pampas.
Between 1855 and 1858, the names of Federico Ar-
tigue (1826–1871), Antonio Aldanondo (1831–1891),
Bartolomé Bossi (1817–1890), Walter Bradley, Pedro
Gartland, Emilio Lahore (1825–1889), Francis Meeks,
Arthur Terry and Antonio Pozzo (1830–1910) were
among those devoted to the new craft. The only woman
daguerreotypist we know about was formerly a painter,
Antonia Annat de Brunet.
In 1852, Juan Camaña (1795–1877) brought to Bue-
nos Aires the stereoscopic daguerreotype. Stereoscopic
daguerreotypes were not very popular because of their
high cost.
As only a few daguerreotypists signed their work,
most of them remain anonymous. Between the few
artists that signed their works are Amadeo Gras (1805–
1871), Saturnino Masoni (1826–1892), Juan Portal and
Anselmo Fleurquin.