The Catalogue of the Sale of Camille Silvy's Studio,London 1869

Abstract

During the mid-19th century, the name Lola Montez was a household word in a surprisingly wide range of circles. A London sculptor went so far as to display, in private, her bust side-by-side with that of Queen Victoria¹, and while Her Majesty's response to this gesture remained unrecorded, Lola could have drawn comfort from the fact that she herself was enjoyed and admired by large numbers of people in less exalted positions. Her status derived in the first place from her beauty, in the second place from her notoriety, the latter being by far the most potent and enduring stimulus. Photographers flocked to take her picture, not only in Europe but also in America (Figure 1), and popular journals everywhere published her likeness, either in the form of engravings or else as photographs, when that became possible. Lola thus shared with Jenny Lind the distinction of being one of the first to be made into a ‘celebrity’ directly or indirectly through the action of the camera. Lola became the inspiration for plays, novels, music and even a film².     

Amateur Photography in the Nineteenth-Century Jewish Diaspora: The Colonial,National, and Transnational Aspects of a Montefiore Family Album

In the second half of the nineteenth century, the Montefiores were an international Jewish family including prominent bankers, insurers, and merchants. Four brothers of the family were also leading members of the amateur photography movement in Britain, Belgium, France, and Australia. An album containing photography now in the State Library of New South Wales in Sydney, but made by Eliezer Levi Montefiore in the Colony of Victoria, reveals aspects of his family’s identity. The album reflects their role in the British colonisation of Australia, as well as their interest in the development of Australian national identity. The enthusiasm for photography manifest in the album was shared by the brothers across national borders, and so also reflects their transnational, diasporic experience. Furthermore, the album represents aspects of the family’s class and gender identities, and functioned as a kind of visual primer for its recipient, Eliezer’s young daughter, Caroline.     

The Japanese Photographers of Broome: Photography and Cross-Cultural Encounter

The remote West Australian town of Broome has a unique photography heritage that sheds new light on the complexities of photography and intercultural relations. During the early twentieth century thriving Japanese communities were established in this region around the lucrative pearling industry. These Japanese communities also helped to develop a fascinating photography culture in Broome. Photography was not simply a business opportunity for the Japanese or a means of documenting people and events; it was a medium through which hierarchised social relations were produced, redefined, and challenged. This article examines photographs by these Japanese residents as an important site of cross-cultural communication and interpretation. These photographs of Anglo-Australian, Japanese, and Aboriginal residents of Broome enrich the study of cross-cultural photographic encounters, and emphasise the dynamic and dispersed qualities of Australian photographic practice and history. Here national histories of photography are usefully conceptualised as the products of imbricated social, economic, and cultural relations that operate across regional, national, and international realms.     

Wanted: The Outlaw in American Visual Culture; Capturing the Criminal Image: From Mug Shot to Surveillance Society; Pictures from a Drawer: Prison and the Art of Portraiture

Several amateur photographers lived and worked in the Coal Branch, a series of mining communities in the eastern foothills of the Canadian Rocky Mountains in Alberta. These communities were transient and very isolated from the rest of the province. Among the photographers working there were Allan Godby and Charles Lee, whose photographs are housed at the Provincial Archives of Alberta. The photographs of Godby and Lee present a unique record of life in the Coal Branch and provide particular insight into the social structures of that community as well as offering a mediated visual document of imposed settlement in pristine wilderness.