Recensione di Christina Riggs, Photographing Tutankhamun: Archaeology, Ancient Egypt, and the Archive, London, Bloomsbury, 2019, ISBN 9780857855077

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Il patrimonio fotografico dell’Archivio Storico delle Gallerie Fiorentine: ragioni e provenienza di alcune fotografie dello stabilimento Brogi

This essay considers a selection of painting reproductions made by Brogi in the 1870s, as part of a larger study on the historical archive of the Florentine Galleries held by the Superintendence of Archaeology, Fine Arts and Landscape in Florence. Cross-referencing these photographs with written documents in the same archive and the commercial catalogs published by Brogi between 1863 and 1901, it is possible to determine that they were originally delivered in compliance with legal deposit regulations established by the new Ministry of Public Education in 1867. At the same time, this case study sheds new light on the connections between commercial photographers and art institutions in Italy in the second half of the 19th century, especially regarding the creation of public photographic archives and the role played by Corrado Ricci, the director of the Uffizi Galleries between 1903 and 1906.

Editoriale

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Recensione di Pierre Schill, Réveiller l’archive d’une guerre coloniale. Photographies et écrits de Gaston Chérau, correspondant de guerre lors du conflit italo-turc pour la Libye (1911-1912), Grâne, Creaphis Éditions, 2018, ISBN 9782354281410

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La fotografia nel museo d’arte a fine Ottocento: sovrapposizioni e occasioni per una rinnovata filologia visiva. Alcuni spunti

The article deals with the effects of photography on the practices of art historians, focusing on some German cases. Photography, defined by Paul de Saint-Victor in 1887 as the “musée en action de l’art européen,” offered unprecedented opportunities for a renewed visual philology. Yet this evolution was more complex and less unidirectional than is generally thought. The illustrated publications of Gustav Scheuer in the 1860s attest to different ways of manipulating photographic images and illuminate the connections between photography and comparative methods, which initially concerned the relationships between original paintings and photographs much more than those among paintings themselves.

“Alle Hilfsmittel an der Hand”: note sulle prime fotografie collezionate da Aby Warburg

There is no evidence of a consistent theoretical position of Aby Warburg regarding photography, but his scattered notes on the subject allow for a deductive evaluation. The considerable use of photographs that he made in his work suggests a wide range of methodological approaches, with significant implications for the disciplinary and methodological definition of art history and the development of photographic documentation at the turn of the 20th century. This essay provides examples of Warburg’s early attention to photography, both as a research tool and a required piece of equipment for any research institute.

Mostra della Fotografia Italiana 1953. Ambizioni disattese del progetto di Giuseppe Cavalli

This essay proposes a reconstruction of the critical reception of the Mostra della Fotografia Italiana 1953 curated by Giuseppe Cavalli. Through the analysis of the main specialized periodicals, the article highlights the scarce incisiveness of the exhibition on the national photographic scenary, showing it, at the same time, as an event that appears obsolete and that represents the beginning of Cavalli’s decline in Italy.

Fotografie e istituzioni museali: il sistema della doppia copia e l’accumulo dei fondi. Le Regie Gallerie di Firenze, 1860-1906

Beginning in the late 1850s, photographic companies reproducing artworks kept in the Royal Galleries of Florence were required to submit copies of their work to the Ministry of Public Education and the museum’s director. This paper shows that while photographers obeyed the rule, their photographs were stored away and left mostly unused for over two decades before the process of creating a proper collection began in the 1880s. Countering traditional histories of how photographic collections were constituted, this paper analyzes bureaucratic practices of documentation and questions the status of photographs in 19th century museums.

Recensione di Pierangelo Cavanna/Francesca Mambelli (a cura di), Un patrimonio da ordinare. I cataloghi a stampa dei fotografi, Bologna, Fondazione Federico Zeri. Università di Bologna, 2019, ISBN 9788894047196

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Il patrimonio fotografico Alinari: excursus storico e questioni attuali

Following the purchase by the Regione Toscana (2019), various possibilities arise for the reorganization and cultural destination of the Alinari photographic heritage. The essay outlines a historical excursus intended to illustrate the methods, phases and type of materials with which such an important archival-museum complex has been formed over time, always playing, in different ways, a particularly important role in Italian and international visual culture.