1324
in Barcelona, on 18 November 1839, professors Juan
María Pou y Camps, Mariano de la Paz Graells and José
Camps y Camps, still unaware of the Catalan experi-
ment, made their fi rst daguerreotype—the second made
in Spanish territory—which required a longer exposure
(60 minutes) due to poor light conditions. This time the
subject, a view of the Royal Palace from the right bank of
the Manzanares River, was probably related to the inter-
est shown by the Queen-Regent María Cristina [Maria
Christina], who agreed to watch the demonstration.
The role played by the aforesaid liberal circles in
developing the new invention is also demonstrated by
the translation into Spanish and publication, in that very
same year, 1839, of up to fi ve different versions, varying
in scope, of Daguerre’s manual. One interesting example
was prepared by Joaquín Hysern and Juan María Pou
y Camps and titled Exposición histórica y descripción
de los procedimientos del daguerrotipo y del diorama.
This version includes a preface on photography and its
relationships to the arts and sciences, with notes on the
authors’ own experiences. It offered two innovative
theoretical photometry methods, which were surely the
fi rst of their kind in the fi eld of photography, but they did
not have the recognition they deserved outside Spain.
El daguerrotipo. Manual para aprender por sí solo tan
precioso arte y manejar los aparatos necesarios by E. de
L. (Eduardo de León y Rico), published in 1846, stands
out amid the second generation of publications on the
invention, which appeared from that year onward.
With no apparent contact among cities, this type
of non-professional circle continued to practice and
disseminate the fi rst advances in this new technology
until well into 1841, with no fi nancial backing from any
institution and supported only exceptionally by private
investors. The press played a very active role in spread-
ing news of the invention and from the outset reported
the major international developments in this fi eld.
The year 1842 undoubtedly marks the start of a new
era in photography in Spain, characterised by very
different objectives and new key players. In a less con-
frontational political context characterised by greater
economic development, the foundations were laid for
photography to be launched as a business and for its
professionalisation, in much the same way and at about
the same time as in the rest of the Western world. Now
the protagonists were travelling foreign daguerreotypists
who came mainly from France (Mr. Constant, Etienne
Martin, Mr. Anatole, Rousson, Jean Gairoard); Great
Britain (Charles Clifford); Germany (Taylor and Lowe,
Joseph Widen, Madame Fritz); Switzerland (Woelker,
Schmidt); and Poland (Count of Lippa). These photog-
raphers, most of whom had been unable to cultivate a
steady clientele in their own countries, came to Spain
to exploit a totally virgin market. Their commercial
strategy was to boast artistic or academic credentials, or
claim links with Daguerre’s circle or dubious aristocratic
titles. They usually travelled over wide areas of the
peninsula, promoting themselves by placing advertise-
ments in the local press upon arriving at each new town.
They often had to combine their trade with other activi-
ties such as selling photographic products and teaching
the new techniques. Their didactic efforts were indeed
crucial to the development and defi nitive implantation of
photography in Spain, because they provided technical
knowledge to future Spanish daguerreotypists, who at
fi rst were also itinerant and mainly anonymous. From
the 1850s onward, some of these itinerants would be-
come fairground photographers, who followed specifi c
routes and worked in standard settings in a profession
that survived little changed until the latter part of the
20th century. The majority, however, began to set up
professional studios. Mauricio Sagristá opened his
establishment in Barcelona in 1842, only a year after
the fi rst studios were inaugurated in Philadelphia and
London; José Beltrán opened one in 1843 in Madrid,
and Francisco de Leygonier started his in Seville in- From 1846 onward, photographic studios were
established in numerous urban centres.
Very soon, certain fi gures began to stand out, includ-
ing the French photographers Eugenio Lorichon and
Franck (François-Alexandre Gobinet de Villecholles)
as well as the Spaniards José Albiñana, who success-
fully took part in the Paris Exposition Universelle of
1855, and Napoleón (Fernando and Anaïs Fernández
Napoleón, the latter one of Spain’s fi rst professional
women photographers). By mid-century hundreds of
portrait photographers were already plying this new
trade, mainly in the major cities, although they simply
recorded their subjects and seem to have had little in
the way of aesthetic pretensions, as elsewhere. The
most popular daguerreotype formats were 1/4 (10.8
× 6.3 cm.) or 1/6 (8 × 7 cm.) of a plate. Their high
prices, although lower than those for paintings, still
limited sales to members of the affl uent classes. Few
daguerreotypes were made of streets or monuments,
and those that have survived are usually of major at-
tractions such as Granada, for which there was a ready
market among travelleres. In fact daguerreotypes were
not used for long. In the 1850s they coexisted with the
new photographic techniques that began to appear on
the market, such as paper and glass negatives, and in
the 1860s they began to be defi nitively replaced by the
new processes.
Long before the invention of photography, southern
Spain was a must for foreign travellers, literati and
draughtsmen, who were attracted by the exoticism of its
Moorish past, still visible in its monuments, and by the
local colour of its inhabitants. The late onset of indus-
trial development allowed Spain to continue to provide
inspiration for the romantic, orientalist spirit that was a