Hannavy_RT72353_C000v1.indd

(Wang) #1

217


a presentation copy of the offi cial catalogue of the Great
Exhibition of 1851, illustrated with over one hundred
and fi fty calotypes. The Library’s collection of nine-
teenth-century photographs is particularly rich in work
from the Indian sub-continent and Egypt. Highlights
include hand-colored photographs from the early 1850s,
taken in Calcutta, Madras, and Ceylon by Frederick
Fiebig; photographs of monuments, architecture, and
sculpture, produced for the Archaeological Survey of
India between the 1850s and 1920; and photographs of
the monuments of Egypt by Maxime du Camp, Felix
Teynard, and Francis Frith. Public access to the British
Library’s collection of nineteenth-century photographic
material improved with the conservation and electronic
cataloguing projects of the 1990s.
Sarah Bassnett


See Also: Talbot, William Henry Fox; Fenton, Roger;
Wheatstone, Charles; South Kensington Museum;
and Wet Collodion Positive Processes.


Further Reading


Baldwin, Gordon, Malcolm Daniel, and Sarah Greenough. All the
Mighty World: The Photographs of Roger Fenton, 1852–1860.
New Haven; London: Yale University Press, 2004.
Barker, Nicolas. Treasures of the British Library, New York:
Harry Abrams, 1988.
Date, Christopher. “Photographer on the Roof.” British Museum
Society Bulletin (July 1989): 10–12.
Date, Christopher and Anthony Hamber. “The Origins of Photog-
raphy at the British Museum, 1839–1860” in History of Photo-
graphy 14, no. 4 (October–December 1990): 309–325.
Day, Alan. Inside The British Library. London: Library Associa-
tion Publishing, 1998.
Esdaile, Arundell. The British Museum Library: A Short History
and Survey. London: George Allen & Unwin, 1946.
Hannavy, John. “Roger Fenton and the British Museum.”
History of Photography 12, no. 3 (July–September 1988):
193–204.
Harris, P. R. A History of the British Museum Library 1753–1973.
London: The British Library, 1998.
Lloyd, Valerie. Roger Fenton, Photographer of the 1850s.
London: Yale University Press and the South Bank Board,
1988.


BROGI, GIACOMO (1822–1881), CARLO


(1850–1925) AND ALFREDO (d. 1925)
Italian photographers


A novice in Achille Paris’s studio, a calligrapher in
Florence, and then a retoucher of chalcography in
Luigi Bardi’s, Giacomo Brogi became a photographer
in 1856. He established his studio in 1860 under the
name “Giacomo Brogi Fotografo” (1 via Tornabuoni)
and took part in the international exhibition in Florence
the following year.
In 1862, he organised a photographic campaign in the


Holy Land (where he will return in 1868) and publish
a sixty views in his Album of Palestine. He began to
photograph works of art and edited his fi rst catalogue
Dei Soggetti artistici in 1863. In 1865, he transferred
his portrait and reproduction studio to 15 Lungarno
alle Grazie and opened a shop at 79 Corso dei Tintori.
He showed his work in several exhibitions (Forli 1871,
Vienna Universal Exhibition 1873) and offered his
Palestine Album to Victor Emmanuel and to Umberto
I, who nominated him “Photographer of the Emperor.”
Brogi developed a chain of shops in the tourist cities of
Italy, fi rst in Rome at 419 via del Corso, then Naples in
1879, at 61–62 piazza dei Martiri and later in Sienna in
1909 at 6 via Cavour.
In all likelihood, Giacomo published his fi rst cata-
logue entitled Firenze e Toscana catalogo in 1878. He
sold his print collections in France and Europe in 1880
thanks to Adolphe Giraudon, who was established at
Bonaparte Street in Paris, in front of the Art School.
In 1879 and 1880, he created the fi rst photographic
campaign of Pompeii. The next year, he exhibited these
photographs with his son Carlo in Milan. He won a
silver medal and received the fi rst prize of landscape
and architecture Photography in Melbourne. Soon after
achieving those accomplishments, Giacomo died.
Giacomo’s son Carlo (1850–1925), helped by his
brother Alfredo (?–1925) managed the fi rm. Together
they specialised in painting reproductions, and published
in 1893–1894 a new three volume catalogue fi lled with
photographs of frescoes, mosaics and drawings of the
great masters from the royal galleries of the Offi ces
of Pitti Palace and the Ambrosian Library. They also
developed new photographic campaigns in Naples and
Pompeii, but kept the same catalogue numbers, which
makes dating the prints diffi cult. Two other catalogues
were published on this subject in 1895 and in 1902,
entitled Supplément au catalogue spécial des photog-
raphies de Naples et environs publiées par la maison
Brogi: peintures, vues, sculptures, etc...
Concerned by copyright and reproduction rights,
Carlo took an active part in the Photographic Italian
Society, of which he became vice-president. In 1885 he
published two brochures entitled Sulla proprieta delle
Fotografi e in Florence and In proposito della protezione
legale delle fotografi e in Rome, discussed with col-
leagues an international approach. He was one of the
fi rst to establish the interdiction of reproduction without
authorisation by inscribing on negatives the two letters
“R.I.” (“Riproduzione Interdita”). Carlo displayed his
images in 1886 in Florence, and organised the fi rst
photographic exhibition there in 1887.
In 1889, Carlo Brogi published a catalogue of 308
pages in several languages entitled Catalogo delle Fo-
tografi e artistiche dallo stabilimento Giacomo Brogi,
listing the prints he had available. This catalogue was

BROGI, GIACOMO, CARLO AND ALFREDO

Free download pdf