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P. Lerebour’s Excursions Daguerriennes [1842]. In the
United States the advanced development of daguerreo-
type technology meant that the depiction of topography
is a little more common.
Only in France was there any form of offi cial attempt
to record the cultural landscape but even the Mission
Heliographique proved to be a premature model for
the systematic use of photography in a topographical
or architectural manner. Depiction of isolated cultural
treasures and picturesque landscape precluded many
representations of personal and public spaces. A recent
pioneering photographic survey of Antwerp acknowl-
edges these visual absences but also noting that the
smells, sounds and urban historical context necessary
to allow proper interpretation. Apart from the work of a
few photographers such as Charles Marville in Paris and
Thomas Annan in Glasgow who were commissioned to
record redevelopment or slum clearances there is only
weak or indirect visual evidence for the reality of Victo-
rian culture: the objective eye of the camera was simply
not pointed in directions we now want to explore.
The daguerreotype quickly became ubiquitous—
much is known of work in Egypt, Palestine, Jordan,
India and North Africa and South America but it is
signifi cant that in Canada the earliest known topo-
graphical views are recorded as late as the mid-1850s.
Unlike the sophisticated application in the United States,
topographical daguerreotypes in many other countries
were never taken or do not survive. This absence is
directly related to absent markets—especially in tour-
ism. Viable marketing and distribution conditions are
necessary for photographic production but even when
both the technology and the incentive existed, prevail-
ing fashion dictated specifi c ‘polite’ forms of coverage
avoiding whole sectors of the society in question: all
topographical ‘records’ and ‘views’ are clearly limited
by both social and market forces.
It is only very recently that some of the earliest topo-
graphical collections have surfaced at auction (Gilbert
de Prangey) and the extent of knowledge and image
survival is still fragmented. Much of what we know
has only developed since the 1970s and is dependent on
haphazard factors—in the market, in academia and in the
variable criteria applied to digitisation. The archaeology
of photography and the genealogy of image generators
remain undeveloped discipline but an emerging global
outline of topographical collections means that key fi g-
ure like Russell Sedgefi eld (born in Devizes, Wiltshire)
is best known through family sources in New Zealand
and Australia, Gustave le Gray’s later Egyptian life can
now be linked with his earlier fame in France, and the
surviving archives of key Scotish topographical com-
panies (James Valentine, George Washington Wilson)
are being made available online (in Scotland) It can also
mean that more is known about the North American
work of a mobile photographer like William England
than any of the rest of his English or international
work he mostly executed for the London Stereoscopic
Company, whose remit was by no means restricted to
London or even England.
Sophisticated marketing and distribution systems
and the dispersal or amalgamation of collections means
that interpretation of apparently national concerns may
require international context. ‘Local’ views may indeed
be generated by local photographers but many similar
views were produced by major commercial companies
so that an understanding of business history starts to
become necessary. In particular the huge market for
stereoscopic views confi rms the need for a global over-
view. Negretti and Zambra consciously sought the views
created by Francis Frith in Egypt which they knew they
could sell in key locations where there was domestic
demand for tourist views such as the Crystal Palace at
Sydenham. Later Underwood and Underwood operated
on an international basis and competed with European
companies for the lucrative stereo market. However, the
massive educational and tourist output of such compa-
nies was still constrained by the landscape and fashion
conventions. The reach of individual photographers like
Felice Beato could extend beyond the Mediterranean
basin as far as Japan—indeed his complex national-
ity and extended travels illustrate the sheer breadth
that one photographer could encompass. In a cultural
sense, however, barriers still existed: for much of the
century topographical views signally avoided social
realities allowing images to be culturally integrated in
historical terms.
In France, Britain and the United States the combina-
tion of industry, commerce, empire and antiquarianism
succeeded in producing a global photographic era. John
Thomson is famous for work in the Far East yet his
extensive operations in his home country (apart from
his famous publication on London street life) are little
known: as the chosen photographer for the English
branch of the Rothschild dynasty he may have been
better remunerated for his opulent English architectural
commissions than for his views of Japan. Based in Al-
sace Adolph Braun dominated European tourist views
as well as creating a monopoly for tourists intent on
acquiring or appropriating gallery images associated
with the Grand Tour. Braun and Frith represent the new
industrial application of photography which before the
advent of wet collodion was pioneered by Blanquart-
Evrard in Lille: the fi rst mass production of topographic
views occurs in limited form in the early 1850s but
was succeeded within a decade by the massive printing
operations by Francis Frith in Reigate, Surrey and by
Adolph Braun in Dornach. By the 1860s the beginnings
of huge national branch empires are evident such as A
& G Taylor of London who combined chains of portrait