923
the protocol of the court of Maximilian and the offi cial
documentation of political events, photographs were a
way of legitimizing the emperor. The court brought the
European carte-de-viste craze to Mexico, and portraits
of Emperor Maximilian, Empress Carlotta, General
Bazaine, members of the court, and its Mexican support-
ers circulated widely in Mexico and abroad. François
Aubert, the offi cial court photographer, made images of
the court at play, during ceremonial occasions, and dur-
ing war, following Maximilian up to his last moments.
His images of Maximilian’s execution and post-mortem
portraits were banned in Europe, but nevertheless cir-
culated widely.
Other French photographers active during this period
included Jules (Julio) Amiel, Auguste Mérille, Jean
Baptiste Prévost, and Auguste Péraire. Photographers
Julio de Maria y Campo, José Pedebiella, and J. B. Parés
came from Spain. Mexican-born photographers, many
of whom had studied at the Academia de San Carlos in
Mexico City, included Francisco Montes de Oca, Lauro
Límon, Andrés Martínez, Luis Campa, Antíoco Cruces,
Agustín Velasco, Joaquín and Maximino Polo, Luis Ve-
raza, Manuel Rizo, and Julio Valetta. Although many of
these men were initially trained as painters, photography
became part of the annual salon at the academy in 1870,
and shortly thereafter photographs were included in the
exhibitions of the Arts and Trades School.
A major trend in Mexican photography during the
nineteenth century focused on travel and exploration.
Foreign photographers were variously interested in
documenting the ethnographic, archaeological, and
natural sights of Mexico. Their interest came out of a
“rediscovery” of the Americas, initially a romanticized
return to pre-Conquest lands, wild and untamed in
comparison to archaeological sites in Europe and the
Middle East. The Viennese Baron Emanuel von Fried-
richstahl was the fi rst of the archaeologist-explorers,
making daguerreotypes of sites in the Yucatan in 1840.
He was followed by John Lloyd Stephens and Freder-
ick Catherwood, Désiré Charnay, Lord Alfred Percival
Maudslay, Augustus and Alice Dixon Le Plongeon, and
Teobert Maler. Charnay, who began his archaeological
explorations in 1858, was the fi rst to break with the
romanticized conception of ancient Mexico and use
photography as a tool for scientifi c research.
Charnay and anthropologist-explorers such as Léon
Diguet, Carl Lumholz, and Frederick Starr made eth-
nographic portraits of indigenous peoples and recorded
daily life. While these photographers purported to have
a scientifi c mission, the resulting images are closely
aligned to the genre of “tipos” or Mexican popular types
that depict people according to social category, regional
costume, or profession, and that had been produced by
earlier photographers such as Aubert, who made a se-
ries of studio portraits of street vendors. The genre was
popular among both native and foreign practitioners.
Americans William Henry Jackson and Charles B. Waite
and Frenchman Abel Briquet made numerous tipos and
images of “Mexican scenes.” The Mexico City fi rm of
Cruces y Campa made a carte-de-visite series of staged
Mexican scenes for the 1876 Philadelphia Centennial
Exposition. Lorenzo Beceril, a native-born studio pho-
tographer in Puebla was well-known for his portraits of
Tehuanas, the distinctively costumed women from the
Isthmus of Tehuantepec.
Promotion of Mexico was another activity of those
traveler-photographers who were patronized by the
Mexican government and private entrepreneurs. Fo-
cusing their lenses on the future rather than the past,
photographers such as William Henry Jackson, Charles
B. Waite, Abel Briquet, and Guillermo Kahlo (father
of Frida Kahlo), photographed progress. Their images
of landscapes in transition showed a Mexico being
changed by engineering projects such as telephone
lines, tunnels, railroads, bridges, and dams. The work
of these chroniclers of the modernization of Mexico
often appeared in the guise of tourist views, since
tourists were seen as potential investors. Their work
also memorialized the achievements of the ambitious
Porfi rian government (1884–1910), and highlighted the
natural resources that could attract foreign investors.
These photographers were frequently commissioned to
produce albums recording the development of railways,
mines, and factories.
Photography as a means for documenting historical
moments and disseminating news had existed in Mexico
since daguerreotypes were taken of American troops
and wounded soldiers in Saltillo during the Mexican-
American War (1846–1848). Aubert’s images from
the French Intervention were of a certain documentary
nature, and were used in Europe to report the news
from afar. However, it was the Porfi riato that made
extensive use of photography to record its accomplish-
ments. A cadre of photographers such as Agustín Victor
Casasola and Guillermo Kahlo were always on hand
to document ceremonial occasions such as the dedica-
tion of buildings and public works. In 1896 Rafael
Reyes Spíndola, owner of several newspapers, began
to print photographs in his papers. As Mexico moved
determinedly into the twentieth century, photojournal-
ism rapidly developed as a means for both recording
change and keeping the public abreast of events. By
the end of the fi rst decade of the twentieth century the
tool that the Porfi rian government had recognized and
used so successfully had been used to document both
its apogee and its demise.
Beth GuynnSee also: Cruces, Antioco and Luis Campa;
Daguerreotye; and Landscape.