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BRASSEY, LADY (1839–1887)
English author, photographer, and patron
Lady Brassey, born Anna Allnutt on October 7, 1839,
near London, England, was a world traveler, writer, col-
lector, and photographer. She was raised by her grandfa-
ther and educated at home by a governess. In 1860, she
married Thomas Brassey, the son of a wealthy railroad
baron and an avid sailor. Lady Brassey wrote fi ve books
based on her travels with her husband: A Cruise in the
Eothen (1872), based on their voyage to North America,
A Voyage in the “Sunbeam” (1878), recording their trip
around the world, Sunshine and Storm in the East, or
Cruises to Cyprus and Constantinople (1880), In the
Trades, the Tropics and the Roaring Forties (1884) that
recorded a trip to the Bahamas and West Indies, and The
Last Voyage to India and Australia in the “Sunbeam”
(1889), which was published posthumously. Her trips
enabled her to pursue her interests in photography and
botany. Seventy albums, fi lled with 6,000 photographs
that were either purchased or made by Lady Brassey,
document sites of interest on her travels. She also col-
lected specimens and artifacts, which comprised the
Brassey Museum in London, opened by her husband
after her death at sea on September 14, 1887.
Andrea Korda
BRAUN, ADOLPHE (1812–1877)
The career of Adolphe Braun illustrates the close rela-
tionship that existed between art and commerce in the
early years of photographic practice. It offers insight
into the manner in which photography became both a
commodity and a force for cultural change. Braun and
his company were involved not only in making photo-
graphs, but also in developing alternative reproductive
processes that would make the camera image available
well beyond the individual silver print. Braun’s activities
represent in microcosm photography’s early shift from
craft to manufacture.
Like many of his generation, Braun began his career
as an artist-draughtsman. A designer of fl oral decoration
for the textile industry in his native region of Alsace, he
soon recognized the camera’s potential for improving
decoration on fabrics produced there. In 1853, he began
to use the newly discovered collodion-albumen process,
which entailed a glass negative coated with a mixture of
soluble gun-cotton and silver salts and a paper positive
coated with egg white and silver salts to make studies
of botanical specimens. Issued as Fleurs Photographiés,
consisting of 300 large format photographs of fl owers,
it was followed by some two hundred smaller scale im-
ages of similar material. Besides their practical use, the
photographs were recognized by the art establishment
as having artistic value on their own.
The artistic and commercial success of this ven-
ture necessitated the creation of a workshop to make
exposures, develop the glass plates, and print the
images. Employing his sons Henri and Gaston, and
several additional workmen, the factory established at
Dornach (a suburb of Mulhouse) eventually produced
all the materials other than paper needed to produce
photographic prints. Additionally, it used steam driven
machinery to mechanize processes that formerly had
been done by hand.
In establishing this facility, Braun recognized the
necessity of producing other photographic commodi-
ties than fl oral prints. Among them were carte-de-visite
and cabinet size portraits, stereographic views, and
panoramas. It is estimated the company produced some
seven thousand stereographs (double images taken by
a camera with two laterally placed lenses), which re-
quired a special viewing device (stereoscope) to create
the illusion of three dimensionality; they were mainly
landscape views. The popularity of painted panoramas
in the mid-nineteenth century undoubtedly infl uenced
Braun’s decision to make photographic panoramas. Us-
ing a camera called a pantascope, modeled on a device
patented by the English inventors John R. Johnson and
John H. Harrison and improved by David Hunter Bran-
don, in the mid-1860s the company began to produce
expansive views of Alpine scenery. These appealed not
only to tourists, but to patriots celebrating France’s
acquisition of the mountainous region of the Savoy.
Besides experimenting with a variety of formats, the
Braun Company undertook to produce a diversity of
subjects. The fl oral prints were followed by other sale-
able subjects. These included scenic landscape views
of Alsace, Germany, and Switzerland, posed costume
pieces of the distinctive dress of peasants in the Swiss
cantons, and views of Parisian streets. By far the most
successful and enduring project undertaken by Braun
and Company was the photographic reproduction of
works of art housed in major European museums. Start-
ing in 1866 with a selection of the master drawings in
the Basel Museum, the project eventually embraced
collections of paintings and sculpture in Florence, Paris,
Rome, and Vienna as well as works by contemporary
artists. The Braun équipe negotiated rights, arranged
for scaffolding, paid gratuities, and coddled art critics
in order to photograph in the Louvre, the Vatican, and
the Albertina, among other venues. The art reproduc-
tions were meant to improve the taste of the French
middle-class, only recently elevated from peasantry, by
introducing it to the masterworks of western European
art. Commercially marketed in France, Germany and the
United States, Braun art reproductions also enabled art
students to become acquainted with works of art that
otherwise would have been inaccessible. By making
available throughout the world identical reproductions